Twilight : The Gamer
by ilbgar
Summary: Twilight dies while defending Princess Celestia, and wakes up in a black void with the words 'Game Over' floating over her.
1. What the-?

Welcome! If you guys want to write your own stories like this, go ahead. I don't mind as long as you tell me about them so I can read them. The difficulties are as follows. Cakewalk, Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Medium, Medium-hard, Hard, Very Hard, Insane, Impossible.

Twilight and the real Cadance hurried through the hall, headed straight for the chapel. They burst through the door, and Cadance called out "Wait!"  
Proceedings ground to a halt, almost everpony did a double-take at the Cadance Twilight had brought with her.  
"Woah, didn't see that coming." Pinkie said, surprised.  
"That's an impostor who's been posing as me for the past month." Cadance explained.  
"Okay, but how are there two of you?" Rainbow Dash asked.  
"She's a changeling. Changelings specialize in disguises. What's more, they feed off love. They take the form of somepony you love, and then gain power feeding off your love for them."  
The impostor ground her teeth angrily, before smirking. "Right you are princess, and as queen of the changelings it's up to me to find food for my subjects," the changeling said, after having dramatically revealed her true form rather stupidly in Twilight's opinion. Then again, she couldn't really have managed to fool anyone after Twilight brought the real Cadance to the wedding.  
"Shining Armor's protection spell will stop them from ever even reaching us!" Cadance said, faithfully. Twilight was less sure, he didn't look well to be honest with herself.  
"Oh, I don't think so, he's under my control, and my army's been chipping away at that barrier around the city for hours, I'd say you've got another five minutes before it disintegrates, Then you'll be at our mercy." the changeling queen said, smirking triumphantly.  
"Canterlot is only the first step of course, the rest of Equestria will follow." Her smile turned slightly predatory.  
"I won't let that happen," Celestia stepped forward. "You may have prevented Shining Armor from casting his spell, but I will not let you do as you please," she said determinedly.  
"Oh? As I recall, you couldn't tell the difference between me and your precious niece, even siding with me over your student. Faithful indeed, she's not even bothered by that. I've never been able to inspire that kind of blind loyalty. I bet she asks how high when you say jump and everything," the changeling mocked.  
"I'm sorry about that Twilight," Celestia apologized.  
Twilight shrugged. "I didn't have any solid proof of anything and-!" her eyes widened. "Look out!" she pushed the solar monarch out of the way of the changeling queen's attack, only to take it directly in the chest.  
Celestia stared, in a mixture of disbelief and horror, at the gaping hole going straight through Twilight's abdomen.  
Twilight stared stupidly at the hole. "Huh, I kind of thought that would hurt more." And with that, she toppled over, dead from the fatal wound.  
She woke up in a black void. She was standing on something solid that seemed invisible. "Huh? Where am I?" she could see herself just fine, there was just nothing else to see, which didn't make sense. Where was the light coming from?  
Suddenly, a strange rectangle popped into existence at her hooves in front of her with the words.

[center][color=#2caf26]'GAME OVER. YOU ARE DEAD.'[/color][/center]

She stared. What the- ? Was this purgatory or something? Or was somepony up there (or possibly down there) playing some kind of joke on her?  
A little animation of a grave on a grassy field appeared below the box. She blinked. This was either a very elaborate joke, or her life was some kind of a game. She really hoped it was the former, rather than the latter.

[center][color=#2caf26]'Game Score Compilation:[/color][/center]

[color=#2caf26]The Good:

Watched Summer Sun Celebration and became inspired. +10 points.  
Hatched Spike. +100 points.  
Passed Entrance Exam. +100 points.  
Became Celestia's student. +1000 points.  
Befriended Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Cadance, Shining Armor, Spike, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy. +100 points each times (10). +1000 points.  
Used EoH (2) times. +100 points each times (2). +200 points.  
Defeated Nightmare Moon. +500 points.  
Quelled the Ursa Minor. +500 points.  
Sealed Discord. +1000 points.  
Restored Discorded friends. +100 points.  
Dealt with (49) crises/ friends problems. +20 points each times (49). +980 points.  
Timetraveled. +100 points.  
Rescued Cadance. +100 points.  
Sacrificed yourself for a loved one. +1000 points.  
Lived to (16). +160 points.  
Subtotal: +6850 points

The Bad:

Didn't Make Friends Until 14. -500 points.  
Fell Prey To Discord's Influence. -500 points.  
Tried To Make A Friendship Problem. -1000 points.  
Got Killed. -500 points.  
Subtotal: -2500 points.  
6840 points - 2500 points = 4340 points.

Setting Bonuses:

No Tutorial. +1000 points.  
No Leveling Up. +5000 points.  
No Item Drops. +1000 points.  
No Experience Rewards. +1000 points.  
No Money Rewards. +1000 points.  
No Hints. +1000 points.  
No Saving. +5000 points.  
Subtotal: 15000 + 4340 = 19340 points.  
Penalty For Cakewalk Difficulty. -3000 points.  
Total: 16000 points.  
Rating: Good Enough.'[/color]

Well, that's not so bad, though she would have liked to know about this sooner. She would likely have given her life choices more thought if she knew her life was in fact a game. Experimentation required that you plan things out.  
Once the shock wore off, she started to freak out. Her life was a game. HER LIFE WAS A GAME! Everything she'd ever done was meaningless, she and everpony she'd ever met had no free will, they were just acting out their directives.  
Could anypony she'd met even be considered a person? Could she? Well, they were probably about as much people as her, maybe less since she seemed to be the main character. She calmed down a bit. What she'd done had meaning to her and those she'd spent time with, even if maybe they weren't people.

[color=#2caf26]'Every thousand points gets you a point added to your Statistics, though this only applies the first time you play. Statistics affect every facet of, well, everything the player (you) does. Your original Stats were; Str 6, Int 20, Agi 10, Con 10, Will 11, Regen 13, Wis 10, Chr 12, Lck 10. HP 200, MP 330.'[/color]

She noted 11 was where most of the numbers hovered around.

[color=#2caf26]'You're new Stats, however, are; Str 22, Int 36, Agi 26, Con 26, Will 27, Regen 29, Wis 26, Chr 28, Lck 26. HP 360, MP 538.  
Now for an explanation of what each Stat represents. Unless specified otherwise, each pony race has an average of 10 in each Stat.  
Str (Strength) affects physical strength, stamina, and adds a point to the damage dealt by physical attacks per point. Earth ponies have an average of 15.  
Int (Intellect) affects magical power and control, memory, learning ability, logical problem solving, and, of course, your intelligence. It adds 10 MP to your pool per point, and raises magical damage by 1 point per point. Unicorns have an average Int of 15.  
Agi (Agility) affects speed, reflexes, ability to dodge, and flexibility. Pegasi have an average Agi of 15.  
Con (Constitution) affects tolerance for pain, overall toughness, and resistance to poison and disease. Each point in Con adds 10 HP to your pool and subtracts one from damage dealt to you.  
Will (Willpower) affects self-control, and your capacity/resistance to manipulation and mind control.  
Regen (Regeneration) affects the rate at which you heal and your magic recovers. Each point translates to a point restored over a minute.  
Wis (Wisdom) affects magic and intuition. It allows you to find the best solution rather than just [i]a[/i] solution. It adds 3 MP to your pool per point.  
Chr (Charisma) affects others impression of you, their willingness to follow you as a leader, and the ease with which you make and keep friends.  
Lck (Luck) affects anything and everything you do, but especially improvisation and games of chance (ie: chess is less affected than a game of rock-paper-scissors).  
HP (Hit Points) how much punishment you can take without dying. In addition to the boost from Con, you gain 10 points from leveling up and from the collectible stars scattered across the game's universe, and have a base 100 points.  
MP (Magic Points) these are expended in order to use magic, but some physical moves can require MP as well. Apart from Int and Wis, you gain 10 points from leveling up, and the collectible stars, and you have 100 base points.  
Each Stat affects several things, but many have minor bonuses to what is normally another Stat's jurisdiction, Lck is a prime example, as it provides a small boost to everything from strength to charisma.'[/color]

Well, she should do much better this time, clearly she wouldn't have gotten a boost to her Stats if she wasn't going to be able to try again. As if reading her mind, the game continued.

[color=#2caf26]'Don't assume that Stats are a perfect indicator of an enemy's strength or your own. Skills can make a seemingly weak opponent into a powerful enemy.  
You have three skills available.  
Efficient Spellcaster: 0/5. Each point in this skill reduces MP costs by 5%.  
Combat: 0/1000. This skill affects your overall combat ability. At 0/1000, your technique is sloppy, and you barely know which end of the weapon to point at an enemy.'

That was kind of insulting, but it was 0/1000.

'Resilience: 0/1000. This skill reduces incoming damage, a high enough Resilience can even completely absorb damage, though don't expect this with even the weakest of monsters until you reach 25/1000. At 0/1000, you're resistance to damage is almost non-existent. You currently have 22 Stat and Skill points to spend, 6 are free, and 16 from the +16 for getting a score of 16,000 points. Spend them wisely, once spent, they can never be recovered.'[/color]

After looking over her Stats, she decided to save her points until she knew what she'd have trouble with. Her Skills however, she'd put points in.  
She got Efficient Spellcaster up to 5/5, and Combat and Resilience up to 8/1000, leaving a single point left unspent. This unlocked two new skills.

[color=#2caf26]'Positive Magic: 0/1000. Grants a deeper understanding of positive magic, the higher the level, the more easily you learn spells tied to positive magic. Negative Magic: 0/1000. Grants a deeper understanding of negative magic, the higher the level, the more easily you learn spells tied to negative magic.'[/color]

She put a point in Positive Magic, hoping to ease her learning of new spells in the future.  
Four pieces of white words appeared as the Game Over block and animation disappeared. They said, New Game, Continue, Options, and Quit.  
Continue was slightly greyed-out, but the rest were solid white.

[color=#2caf26]'New Game begins a new game, which usually starts at birth. Levels, Skills, and Stats carry over through all playthroughs, and this is true whether you are merely switching between them.  
Continue lets you continue from a saved file, but you cannot because you didn't save your game.'[/color]

Logically she'd been at least somewhat aware that she'd have to start completely from scratch, but that one sentence made it sink in, and she instantly became depressed.

[color=#2caf26]'Options lets you change the game mechanics and difficulty.'  
'Quit means true, final, death.'[/color]

She took in a deep breath and sighed. Well, she might as well go along with it. She first selected Settings, and looked them over.

[color=#2caf26]'Tutorial: Off. Leveling: Disabled. Item Drops: Disabled. Exp Rewards: Disabled. Money Rewards: Disabled. Hints: Disabled. Saving: Disabled. Difficulty: Cakewalk. HP/MP bars invisible.' [/color]

She raised an eyebrow. With the way this was set, you'd think someone was trying to keep her from ever finding out her life was a game. Well, she couldn't really do anything about it, could she? Besides, she was not [b]looking[/b] for problems with a second chance.  
She changed them to her liking.

[color=#2caf26]'Tutorial: On. Leveling: Enabled. Item Drops: Enabled. Exp Rewards: Enabled. Money Rewards: Enabled. Hints: Enabled. Saving: Enabled. Difficulty: Cakewalk. HP/MP bar visible.'[/color]

She next selected New Game, but a box with text appeared in front of her.

[color=#2caf26]'Alert! You haven't updated your game in 16 years. Updates are meant to make the game better, fixing bugs and adding new content.' [/color]

She selected Yes, and the void around her lurched.

[color=#2caf26]'Cheats feature available. Cheats change the way the game behaves, but it requires that you collect golden stars of magic, otherwise you can't use any of the cheats.' [/color]

She found herself staring at a disorganized field of statues of her, albeit sometimes as a different species. There were three main categories however. The smallest group was painted, and looked like they could start moving at any time. The largest group was simply grey, if well-crafted, statues of her. The last group were covered in cloaks, but presumably were of her.  
She noticed that the statues were completely disorganized.  
"I wonder if I can sort this place out a bit," she mused, only for the statues to do so themselves, and found herself in front of the colored versions.  
The first was identical to her, down to even the most minute detail.

[color=#2caf26]'Basic Twilight.'[/color] a pop-up read. [color=#2caf26]'The original version of Twilight, upon which even the most twisted avatar is at least loosely based. An all-rounder who is not magnificent at any one thing, but not terrible at anything either. This avatar is always unlocked.'[/color]

Well, that was her from the first time, obviously.  
The next wore glasses and appeared to be reading a book.

[color=#2caf26]'Genius Twilight. This version of Twilight has an IQ of 350. Twilight's always been intelligent on the super-genius level. She can decipher any puzzle or complete any intellectual challenge. Friendship has never really interested her, she considered it a waste of time she could spend studying. So she's socially inept to an almost unbelievable degree. Unlocked by studying for 1000+ hours.'[/color]

That was interesting, she could probably switch between them. She could use that to study with Genius something that was troubling her in another of these.  
The next was a strange biped in a light blue shirt, dark blue skirt embroidered with her cutie mark, and a pair of white boots, she'd say some kind of primate, surrounded by semi-translucent blades, and had a cold expression.

[color=#2caf26]'Warmage Twilight. This Twilight is the younger sister of Noctis, a prince in an alternate Equestria where neither Celestia nor Luna exist and the forces of nature are controlled by 6 Crystals spread between three kingdoms.  
Equestria posses the Solar, Lunar, Water, and Earth Crystals. The Tauros States posses the Fire Crystal, while the Gryphon Kingdom has the Wind Crystal. Tensions between the three have been rising, mainly because the Gryphon and Minotaur nations war with each other almost constantly, while making demands of Equestria ranging from aid to handing over one of their Crystals. Requires the Swordsmare Avatar to be unlocked.'[/color]

Okay, she'd leave that one for now. Not a fan of war.  
The next had a pair of swords strapped to her back.

[color=#2caf26]'Swordsmare Twilight. This version is as talented with blades as with magic. She joined the Royal Guard like her brother, and when she proved talented in both combat and magic, was made a member of Celestia's personal guard. Unlocked by having a family member in the royal guard as a ranked officer.'[/color]

Huh, that might be interesting just to go through.  
The next had a sly, Cheshire Cat-like, grin.

[color=#2caf26]'Politically Savvy Twilight. After noticing an alarming tendency of nobles trying to either corrupt or intimidate her student into subservience in hopes of gaining some influence on Celestia herself, which Twilight was resisting remarkably well, she began to teach her student politics.  
Having been taught by someone with centuries of experience, she is very skilled. However, she remains loyal to her mentor, as nearly every Avatar does. She is, unfortunately, somewhat mistrustful of others after how the nobles tried to use her to get to her mentor. Unlocked by becoming Celestia's student.'[/color]

Yeah, the first part had kind of happened already.  
The next was once again bipedal, and was halfway through drawing a runic circle of some kind.

[color=#2caf26]'Alchemist Twilight. This version is from Amestris, a country in a world where alchemical transmutation is possible. Alchemy is the science of analyzing an object, breaking it down into it's basic components, and restructuring it. It is governed by the law of equivalent exchange, which states that in order to obtain, something of equal or greater value must be lost.  
She is an ally of the Elric brothers against the Homunculi. Requires Genius Twilight and having used the Elements of Harmony at least once to unlock.'[/color]

Now that sounded interesting. She'd definitely want to see what that was about, since it sounded like an actual other world.  
The next was another biped, this time in a black robe with an insanely long katana and a mask formed from dark energy on her face. The mask radiated evil.

[color=#2caf26]'Twilight Kurosaki. This version is from a planet called Earth, specifically Karakura Town. She is the second eldest of the Kurosaki children. She can see spirits like her elder brother, but this could attract unwanted attention in the future. Unlocked by being killed, and requires Swordsmare Twilight.'[/color]

Odd, this world sounded very different somehow. Another candidate for playing through?  
The next was an alicorn (combination of earth pony, pegasi, and unicorn) filly.

[color=#2caf26]'Alicorn Twilight 1. This version hatches Spike without the aid of the Sonic Rainboom, and becomes an alicorn in the process. Unlocked by hatching Spike, becoming Celestia's student, and using the Elements of Harmony at least once.'[/color]

Yeah, that was a bit overwhelming. She didn't really feel comfortable with this version. It felt blasphemous.  
The next was a biped that had a strange key-shaped sword. The teeth were formed from the star of magic, the shaft was dark purple, the guard was golden and circular, the handle was white, and the keychain was the stone orb her element had been inside when she first saw it.

[color=#2caf26]'Twilight the Keybearer. Aprrenticed to Master Yen Sid, like King Mickey, she later joins Sora on his quest to defeat Organization XIII at her master's behest. Unlike most Avatars, she has some basic understanding of the importance of friends. Unlocked by using the Elements of Harmony, writing at least 10 friendship reports, and requires Swordsmare Twilight.'[/color]

Well, 'the Keybearer' that sounded destiny-ish. Another candidate.  
The next of the colored ones looked like Basic, but had a calm, determined expression.

[color=#2caf26]'Enhanced Twilight. Several alicorn genes make this an improved version of Basic, though still an all-rounder. Unlocked by playing as Basic Twilight at least once. Adds 100 HP/MP.'[/color]

Huh, that sounded great! Essentially a better her. She was doing this one first.  
The next was a pegasus instead of a unicorn.

[color=#2caf26]'Pegasus Twilight. Their filly being a pegasus was not that surprising to her parent since they had pegasi genes in the family. This version has as much talent for weather manipulation as Rainbow Dash has for flying. Befriend at least two pegasi to unlock.'[/color]

That made sense, her talent for unicorn magic translated to skill in utilizing the more active aspects of pegasi magic.  
The last colored one was an earth pony.

[color=#2caf26]'Earth Pony Twilight. The fact that their filly was an earth pony was the cause of much sneering among the other nobles towards the Sparkles. However, she excelled at earth pony magic. She was strong enough to uproot a small tree from an early age, then cause an instant replacement to grow. Unlocked by befriending at least two earth ponies.'[/color]

Once again, her talent for magic had transferred over.  
The grey ones were not yet unlocked for use, as it turned out, and when she tried to touch one of the cloaked ones, a blast of energy shot by where her head had been a moment before.  
"Don't touch... right, got it," she said, more than a little freaked out.  
She decided to start with Enhanced. It was close to Basic in terms of background, and she'd take any advantage she could get. Her HP would be 460, and her MP would be 638.  
After she selected it, she found herself waking up to her old room. She took a look at the nearest calendar. It was the day after her fourth birthday. Huh, old enough to be able to move around freely, but not old enough to have her life set in stone. Convenient.


	2. Tutorial

She began the tutorial as soon as she was alone.

[color=#2caf26]'Tutorial Start:

Welcome to Twilight Sparkle: Game of Life.

This tutorial will give you only the basics, consult Hints for more information.

First, you will need to know what carries over from previous playthroughs, and what does not. Items, your background, and reputation do not carry over, but almost every other conceivable thing does. This is due in part to how much Stats influence how you perform.'[/color]

She nodded, that made sense. As she understood it, starting a new game was essentially resetting the world. Of course physical objects, others opinions of her, and her own background wouldn't carry over from other playthroughs. That last one seemed to be the point of the other avatars.

[color=#2caf26]'Items are things necessary to move ahead in the story, such as the Element of Magic, monster drops, which are obtained from defeating enemies, and healing items, which can bought at a few stores and be used to heal others. No healing items exist for PC (Player Characters), NPCs (Non-player Characters) however, can be healed with potions made by herbalists, apothecaries, and doctors.

Reputation is how the public sees you. At the lower limit is Outlaw, at the upper limit is Saint, we feel these are self-explanatory. Nations and cities have separate reputation bars, though increasing your reputation in a nation will tend to have a positive effect in cities that are part of it, and vice-versa. Individuals that are important to you and the storyline also have rep., your parents, for example.

Having a high reputation provides all sorts of benefits, from raising other's respect for you, to allowing access to new quests. Defeating enemies, accomplishing impressive feats (ie: Sealing Discord), acts of kindness, and completing quests raise your reputation.'[/color]

Okay, then she'd make a point of raising her reputation when she had the chance.

'Your money stays in a pouch you can access at any time by saying 'piggy bank.' Don't worry, it's nothing embarrassing.'

Well, that was odd. Why did the game care if she was embarassed? Also, why did she have to say 'piggy bank?'

'Quests are tasks that you are given either by people, events, or by entering a specific area. They award experience points, money, an increase to your reputation, and a small number of skill points. They can range from tasks like pointing a tourist in the correct direction, to clearing out some enemies; many Bosses are quest specific.

There are two main types of quest: Side Quests, and Main Quests.

Side Quests are all optional, but it is recommended you do at least some of them in order to level up, gain more skill levels, and get more money and reputation. Some quests are part of Quest Chains.

Quest Chains are quests that must be completed in order, however, the latter quests in the chain tend to have both higher rewards and difficulty than the previous ones.

Main Quests must be completed to advance the story, and can be considered to be all part of a Quest Chain. If you fail a Main Quest, you get sent back to the main menu, as if you had died.'

It seemed that quests would be a large portion of her time.

'Enemies are those who would harm you, whether they're carnivorous rodents, common thieves, or demons. Defeating them grants exp., money, and a tiny increase to rep. everywhere. Bosses are special enemies that you can defeat for a much greater reward than normal monsters, and a number of skill points. Most Bosses are optional. Enemies are the most likely to kill you, more likely than disease or falling from a great height combined.'

Right, that was likely going to be prominent as well

'Saving can only be done with a travel journal, or bed. If you die you can restart from your last Save File. Save Files are of limited number, 100 to be specific. You cannot recover a Save File you overwrite with new data, so be careful when saving.'

Well, 100 save files meant she should be fine even if she made more than one save file per avatar.

'Skill points can be obtained by leveling up, obtaining golden stars of magic, quests, and by defeating Bosses. By raising skill levels, you can increase your relative ability level, and obtain new skills.'

Yes, she'd figured that part out already.

'Leveling Up grants more HP and MP, points to spend on Stats, and points to spend on skills. The maximum level is 9999.'

That should be plenty of room to grow, she noted wryly.

'Finally, there's the mini-map in the top left corner. The mini-map shows enemies, allies, and quests. Enemies as red dots, allies as blue dots, quests as question marks, and the player in the center as a purple dot.'

That would be certainly prove useful. Right, that cleared up a lot of things..

[center]***Perspective of Twilight's Family***[/center]

Twilight was acting strangely, she was reading books at a level she simply wasn't at a few days ago, and something about her was fundamentally different. She moved differently, she reacted to little family moments differently, laughing or blushing at things she shouldn't understand, she even wrote differently, more cleanly and with absolutely no spelling errors.

It was as if someone similar had replaced the filly, someone older and more mature.

She was starting to concern her parents and brother. She was acting completely differently to normal. She'd rarely disobeyed her parents before, but now she followed the letter and spirit of what they said. It wasn't natural for a filly to be [i]that[/i] well behaved suddenly.

[center]***Twilight's Perspective*** [/center]

She woke up before dawn for the Summer Sun Celebration. To be more accurate, she woke the others up. As she got ready, a chime sounded and a pop-up appeared.

'Main Quest. Watch the Summer Sun Celebration. Watch Princess Celestia raise the sun, and become inspired to study magic. Main Quests must be accepted.'

She nodded. That figured. This had been pretty influential on her life the first time.

She went with her family to watch the celebration. They were walking along when Twilight noticed a glowing gold star in an alley. She ducked into it and collected the star when the others weren't looking, since she assumed they'd think she was grabbing at nothing, as they had yet to notice when she used a game mechanic even if it was right in front of them.

'Gold Star Collected. +10 HP/ MP, +1 to all Stats, +6 skill points.'

She quickly rejoined the others and listened to the game's explanation as she walked.

'You have collected your first Gold Star of Magic. Gold Stars tend to be hidden in hard-to-find or inconvenient places. Your New Stats are: Str 23, Int 37, Agi 27, Con 27, Will 28, Regen 30, Wis 27, Chr 29, Lck 27. HP 480. MP 661.'

She dumped the skill points into Positive Magic, raising it to 7/1000. She hadn't really had any contact with negative magic, so she wasn't going to put points in it. Plus she had kind of been forbidden by the princess to practice it as it tended to be highly corruptive. Luna used it, but... Nightmare Moon.

She moved forward through the crowd, taking advantage of her smaller size to get a better view. It looked like being four again had advantages besides starting over.

She watched the princess raise the sun with slightly less awe than the first time, but not much. She'd studied a bit before this point in the timeline, but now she had an excuse to study hard.

'Quest Complete! +10 exp. +10 Bits. Reached Lv. 1! +6 Stat points and +6 Skill points.'

She saved her Stat points, and used the skill points to raise Positive Magic to 11/1000, and Combat and Resilience to 9/1000. There was a change in the description for Positive Magic when it went over 10/1000.

'At 10/1000 or more, you understand the basics of positive magic.'

Hm, it looked like the description would change for every 10 points spent on a skill.

'You've obtained 2 new skills. Skills can be gained from increasing your previous skills to a certain level, or maxing them out. Though this will not always happen with every skill. You've obtained: Magical Force. 0/1.10% more damage dealt to enemies by magic. Magical Defense. 0/1. 10% less damage taken by magic.'

Alright, that would have been excellent to know before she allocated her skill points. She was becoming convinced that not only did the game have a mind of it's own, but, while it may be helpful most of the time, it had a slightly twisted sense of humor.

She ran back over to her parents, and told them she wanted to study magic, seriously. Since she had a fairly high reputation with them, and thanks to her Chr 29, they not only agreed, but bought her a set of books for it.

She got through them very quickly since her Int was so much higher than before, and her Positive Magic skill was boosting her learning ability on the subject. After about a month, she finished with all the books, and went to get some new ones for herself.

She'd already read nearly all the library books, especially the ones that would be in stock at this point in time, in her first lifetime. She, therefore, had only one option. Buy some books from the market that she hadn't read before.

She found that she couldn't afford any books she hadn't already read for her 10 Bits. All the books she wanted cost at least 20 bits. So, she went to do some quests. There was a cluster by the train station, presumably tourists who needed directions. She went there, and found several tourists with blue question marks over their heads.

She walked over to the first.

"Hm, which way should I go?" he asked, looking at a map uncomprehendingly.

"Where are you trying to go?" Twilight asked him.

'Quest Accepted. Tour Guide. Point him in the right direction.'

She blinked. Well alright then.

"Well, I was hoping to see some of the historical sites," he said.

"Oh, well go up a block," she pointed behind her, "then turn right and go up two more blocks. You'll see several museums. The one on the right will give you a map to the historical sites if you ask at the front desk," she told him.

He thanked her and went on his way, rendering the quest completed.

The next was a mare just off the train.

"Do you know any good restaurants?" the mare asked, having watched her give that stallion directions.

She accepted the quest. "Sure, go three blocks to your left, then another block after taking another left," she directed the mare.

She was thanked again, and the mare left. She'd completed the quest. That was easy.

"Do you know how to get to the library?" another mare asked.

"Of course, I used to spend a lot of time there, I could walk there in my sleep, which I did once. Anyway, just go straight for five blocks, it's right up a staircase after that," Twilight told her, completing the quest, and earning the mare's gratitude.

The last one was a stallion who needed directions to a bakery. Luckily, she knew this city like her own limbs. She had no trouble remembering the way to the bakery he wanted to visit.

Each of these quests awarded 25 exp, 25 Bits, 2 skill points, and a small increase to her reputation. She did four, increasing her level to 2, and raising her rep. from Accepted By Society to Citizens are Fond Of.

She raised her Combat and Resilience to 10/1000, obtaining the Skills: Regenerator. 0/1. +10% to rate of regeneration. Shield. 0/5. Shield that stops damage, any damage that exceeds the shield subtracts from the HP. Regeneration fixed at 1 point every 10 seconds. Investing points raises the shield's maximum value. Note, it appears as a small bar beneath HP.

Combat and Resilience's description changed. For Combat,

'At 10/1000 or more, you're still a beginner, even by amateur standards, but you're not as bad as before,'

and for Resilience,

'At 10/1000 or more, you can take a hit reasonably well, for a piece of glass.'

She raised Magical Force, Magical Defense, Regenerator and Shield to their respective maximums, and then raised Combat, and Resilience, to 11/1000, and Positive Magic to 13/1000. This gave her a small bar under HP labeled Shd, 50/50.

She used the money to buy a few new books, and greedily devoured their contents in a week, leaving her right back where she started.

Perhaps she ought to get more money at once and buy more books at once. It wasn't as though there was a lack of quests, though once she completed one it was gone for good. She had yet to discover another main quest, but she assumed the entrance exam would be one. Besides, it wasn't as if she needed to do one right away. There were plenty more quests to do in the mean time.

She wandered around, looking for a quest that seemed promising, when she found a mare with one, looking worriedly at her house.

"Is everything okay?" Twilight asked, concerned.

"No, my house is infested with Spiders," the mare said, leaving Twilight wondering how she had managed to convey a capital letter in her speech. She shrugged it off, probably part of the game. She studiously avoided trying to figure it out, that way lay madness and Pinkie Pie. Not that she didn't like Pinkie, but she did value her sanity.

'Spiders. Normal spiders that had been exposed to large amounts of magic and grown dozens of times larger, and far more vicious. They are generally the brood of a Queen Spider.

Queen Spiders. The mothers of the Spiders, they are far more powerful than their brood. They are of the Boss rank among enemies.'

"I really hate Spiders, or I'd clear them out myself. Do you know anyone who could help?" the mare asked.

"I'll do it," she responded, forcing herself not to turn and look as something inside the house made a skittering sound. That was really creepy.

"Are you sure?" the mare asked, looking her up and down. Probably because of her age. She wouldn't be especially confident in the abilities of a four-year-old either.

"Yes, I'll be fine," she reassured.

'Quest Accepted! Exterminate the Spiders. Eliminate all the Spiders and the Queen Spider from the quest-giver's house.'

"Well, if you say so... but you'll need this." The mare gave her a scroll that detailed a spell known as Fireball, which produced what the name implied. She was always willing to learn a new spell, especially when it benefited her, like right now.

'Positive Magic skill check: 13/10. Learned Fireball spell! Fireball creates a ball of fire that seeks out the target. This auto-target attribute can be boosted by the Combat skill. Costs 20 MP.'

"Spiders, and most bugs, hate fire, Be careful, they're pretty big." the mare explained.

20 MP -25% was 15 MP, with how many times she'd likely be using it shortly, that would add up.

Twilight nodded, said "Thanks, I'll be back soon," and went inside, and immediately used her new spell three times as spiders as big as she was (at her current age of four) rushed her.

Since her Int was so high, the spell was effective, and her Combat skill was also benefiting her. The Fireball spells dealt 40 damage to the Spiders, who only had 30 HP, killing them instantly.

She took deep breaths to calm herself down, and was thankful her Will and Con were high enough to keep herself from throwing up at the smell of crispy Spider.

Each Spider awarded 5 exp and 5 bits, and she got Spider's Legs from one.

'Spider's Legs, a potion maker's ingredient, is useful, but common, so it sells for cheap. 1/5 drop.'

She noticed a counter below the mini-map it read '28.' It must be how many were left, so 27 Spiders and the Queen Spider. She navigated the rooms of the first and second floor, taking care of any Spiders she found, causing the counter to steadily drop.

She finished the last regular Spider, leaving only the Queen Spider, which, of course, seemed to be in the dark basement where it would be able to see her better than she could see it.

She steeled herself - just because she was only level 2 didn't mean she couldn't do this. It shouldn't even be too hard since the game expected her to be able to do it, if the quest was available at this point. She waited until her bars were all at full, since she wanted to be at her best for the Boss, and scratches and bites, along with a somewhat drained MP bar, were not going to be helpful. Then she cautiously made her way down. Even the light from the open door did little to brighten the gloom.

She was careful to avoid anything that even looked like spider's web, and looked for the Queen Spider, or a sign of movement. This wariness let her dodge the first strike by a hair, she was not so lucky the second time, and gasped as her Shd was 3/5 wiped out, 30 damage with her Resilience over 10?! That was insane! What would it be with her Stats before?

She cast Fireball repeatedly, dodging as many attacks as she could, even with her shield absorbing a few points of damage, she could only take about 15 of those. She was very glad her Regen was so high, otherwise the Queen Spider's 1000 HP would have defeated her by attrition.

It took her approximately 1.8 seconds to regenerate a point in HP and MP, so if she was paying attention and lucky, she could still win this.

When it dropped to below 250 HP, the Queen Spider's eyes suddenly turned red. That couldn't mean anything good for her. Red eyes were never good. Ever.

'Target has become Enraged, while Enraged, damage-dealing is doubled.'

Now she was told this?! She ducked under a hit, firing three Fireballs, on the bright side, being Enraged removed any sense of fear, so it didn't even try to dodge the attacks. On the downside, it actually barreled through them directly at her. She cast Fireball as many times as she could to knock it back, leaving the Queen Spider with only 10 HP. One more shot, and it was toast!

She took one hit, leaving herself with 99 HP, and fired one last Fireball just as it swiped at her one last time.

It died, and she had 1 HP left. Her shield had regenerated a point at the same time as her HP regenerated to 100, just a moment before she got hit.

'Congratulations! You have defeated your first boss, which we weren't really expecting you to accomplish on your first try. Earned 75 exp, 75 Bits, 10 Skill points. You've reached level 3. +6 Stat points, +6 Skill points.'

An eye twitch, she'd had a slightly higher opinion of the game's expectations of her.

She had just almost died, so she raised her Agi, Con, and Regen with her 18 Stat points. Str 23, Int 37, Agi 34, Con 34, Will 28, 34 Regen, Wis 27, Chr 29, Lck 27. HP 580, Shd 50, MP 691.

She also raised Combat and Resilience to 19/1000 with her 16 Skill points.

She waited for her wounds to heal enough that she didn't look (or feel, for that matter,) like she was going to drop dead. Then she exited the house.

"I took care of them, but there's crispy Spider everywhere," she told the mare.

"Thanks, I'm only really bothered by them when they're moving around. Besides, biologists will pay money for fairly intact corpses, since they have so much trouble studying them alive. Here's a token of my appreciation."

'Quest Complete! +100 exp, +100 Bits, +2 Skill points.'

Twilight placed the Skill points into Positive Magic 15/1000.

"Watch out for the Queen Spider's corpse, it's really unnerving," Twilight commented, shuddering slightly, she was going to have nightmares about this, she was sure.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, I'd never have let you go in there if I knew there was a Queen Spider in there! You usually have to call in the Royal Guard to deal with them," the mare apologized.

After she assuaged the mare's worries and left to buy more books with her roughly 300 bits (augmented by the pocket change she got from selling her stock of Spider's Legs), Twilight noticed her reputation bar had increased a fair amount compared to prior the quest.

She decided she needed to think about how to perform better in combat. The Skill Levels had only affected her so much, and she was virtually defenseless if her MP ran out.

Still, she was fairly happy with how things were going right now, she was improving, and she'd already learned some new tricks for using her magic in combat from the books, experience and, of course, by raising her skill levels.

'Chapter Progress: Level 3, 275 exp to next level. 6 quests completed. 1 star found.'

Huh, she got the distinct impression the game wasn't talking to her that time.

AN: In case it wasn't clear, with the exception of level 0, each level requires the level number times 100 in exp to reach the next level.


	3. Aquesting We Will Go

She'd finished the books she'd bought, and now she was back on quests. Perhaps she ought to just do as many quests as possible at this point in the timeline, then buy books.

At any rate, several new quests had shown up after that last quest she completed. Mainly just yard chores.

First was a mare who needed some rocks in her yard removed. Second was a stallion who needed repairs to his rock wall, which she used the rocks she'd obtained from the previous quest for. The next needed the dead branches removed from her trees. The one after that needed a drainage ditch dug. The next needed under their porch cleared out.

The next was rocks again, but these were stuck deeper in the ground, although relatively fewer than the other quest for moving rocks. The seventh was cleaning out a garage. The eighth was cleaning out a shed. The ninth was bathroom cleaning. The tenth was organizing an attic. The eleventh was lawn-cutting, and the last was hedge-trimming.

Each quest awarded 25 exp, 25 bits, and 2 skill points. This caused her to reach level 4.

She'd had trouble with some of the heavy lifting (stupid rocks, she didn't even remember some of these houses being here before!) involved in these quests, so she put three Stat points into Str, and one each into Agi, Con, and Regen. Str 26, Int 37, Agi 35, Con 35, Will 28, Regen 35, Wis 27, Chr 29, Lck 27. HP 600, Shd 50, MP 701.

She used 8 of her 30 Skill points to get Combat, Resilience, and Positive Magic 20/1000. The descriptions changed again. For Combat,

'At 20/1000 or more, you have a decent skill level, not great, but okay.'

For Resilience,

'Now you really can take a hit pretty well, it's not like your body's made of lead, but you certainly take less damage than a normal person.'

And for Positive Magic, 'At 20/1000 or more you understand positive magic to about the level expected of unicorns in a regular school.'

This unlocked three new skills.

'Blade-wielding. 0/1000. Enhances skill with bladed weapons. At 0/1000 you don't have any more skill than someone who's never so much as held a butter knife before. Body Armour. 0/5. Blocks incoming damage, essentially the same as Resilience, but twice as effective. Magic Copying. 0/5. Allows you to copy a spell performed in your view. Higher levels allow you to replicate a spell that you didn't see the entirety of.'

She raised Body Armour and Magic Copying to 5/5 and Blade-wielding to 12/1000.

'At 10/1000 or more, you can't defend yourself against someone with training, but you can give most amateurs a challenge, not that you're guaranteed to win.'

It appeared she had had her physical set of combat skills decided for her. Ah well, she'd be getting a sword of some kind to supplement her magic. It only made sense, what with how many Avatars had been focused on using swords. She wouldn't want to be unable to use those Avatars because she didn't have any skill with a sword.

She also discovered that there was no upper limit on how many quests she could take at once by accepting multiple yardwork quests at once, and doing them by multitasking.

She was exploring the outskirts of town, when she came across a decidedly seedy-looking neighborhood. She got a quest pop-up, apparently from the environment itself.

'Cleanup the Crime. Take out 5 Thugs and one Thug Lieutenant and turn them in to the authorities.

Thugs. Bandits who are all part of a gang that currently still operates, but is slowly being worn down by the authorities.

Thug Lieutenants. One step up from the Thugs, they have command over them and are a tougher fight.'

She accepted, and the targets appeared on the mini-map. The Thugs weren't really a challenge, but the Thug Lieutenant had twice as much HP and actually had some technique behind his movements, so she had to put some effort into it. She got his sword as a drop.

Well, that took care of that problem, but she'd need to hide it somewhere later, she couldn't take it home with her. What would her parents think of a four year old with a sword?! ...She didn't want to think about it. Heck, she was a bit surprised that nopony seemed to notice.

The Thugs had rewarded 10 exp and 10 bits, while the Thug Lieutenant had awarded 15 of each. She conjured up a cloak to cover her face before giving the criminals to a patrol of Royal Guards, tied together with a card left behind saying, 'From a friend.' They'd apparently been wanted for some time, so the guards had taken them in.

She got a reward of 50 exp/bits and 2 skill points. She raised her Blade-wielding to 14/1000 with the points. Then she got another quest from the environment.

'Clean Up the Streets. Take out 20 Thugs and turn them in.'

She accepted, and found it easy to wipe out the 20 Thugs with her new weapon working in tandem with her spells, the only time they'd posed a challenge was when 5 of them had ganged up on her. She took a few hits before she brought them down.

She'd even found a star in a gutter, and reached level 5. She also got 100 Exp/Bits and 3 Skill points from the quest reward. She dumped the Stat points into Str to increase the damage of her sword strikes as they were physical attacks. Str 32, Int 38, Agi 36, Con 36, Will 29, Regen 36, Wis 28, Chr 30, Lck 28. HP 620, Shd 50, MP 721.

She used the Skill points to raise Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 23/1000.

'At 20/1000 or more, you can hold your own against someone with training with blades, and fend off most rookies.'

Huh, it seemed that Blade-wielding wasn't going to divulge any new skills. Come to think of it, the few swordponies she'd seen in the Royal Guard (on the rare occasion she attended her brother's training exercises in either timeline) used technique, speed, and strength, not tricks, to fight. Though that might just have been because they were in the Royal Guard, and were therefore expected to be honorable.

Speaking of Royal Guards, a new quest appeared in the area. It's giver was a member of the Royal Guard, looking worried. That was a very bad sign, the Royal Guard was famous for being nigh emotionless in most situations.

"What's the problem?" she asked, keeping her hood up. She didn't want any awkward questions being asked about how she'd managed to take down adults, and she certainly didn't want her parents to hear about her activities. She loved them, but they were a tad overprotective.

Granted she was physically a filly at the moment, so any normal pony would be concerned, but considering she'd already died once, she didn't really see the problem. She wasn't suicidal, she just realized that she wasn't going to be dead for long if she was killed. Therefore, avoiding potentially lethal situations was pointless.

Besides, her tolerance for pain was way up there by now, and she hadn't exactly had a low threshold before, so she didn't see any point in being wrapped up in a blanket and locked in her room so her parents could keep her from getting hurt. That was why she was wearing this hooded cloak.

"Royal Guard business," the guard said stiffly.

"You look worried, perhaps I can help," Twilight tried again, hoping her Chr would convince him.

"Alright, if you must know, thanks to an unknown vigilante, we captured a member of a local gang of thieves who knew the location of their base. We sent a full patrol in, but they were supposed to report in 20 minutes ago," he said, glancing worriedly in what was presumably the direction the others had gone in.

'Save the Guards. Help the Royal Guards take out the base of the Thugs, defeating the 15 Thugs, 5 Thug Lieutenants, Thug Captain, and the Thug Boss.

Thug Captain. This Thug is far more skilled than the Lieutenants, and is a Boss, though he is actually one of the weakest of the Boss class.

Thug Boss. This Boss makes his Captain look tame, having approximately 50% more skill.'

She accepted, and the locale appeared on the mini-map.

"I'll go lend a hoof," she said, before running off in the direction at a speed that left the guard gaping.

"I don't know if I should try and go stop her," the guard said. Something had just told him to trust her, while logic argued against letting what was clearly a filly, based on her height and apparent body mass, go into a literal thieves' den. After a few seconds deliberation, he compromised and decided to call for backup.

Twilight found all the Thugs mentioned in the quest guarding the fallen Royal Guards. She swatted them aside long enough to get the guards out of harm's way, then fought them in earnest. She had skill and stamina, while they had numbers. In addition, if the fight took too long, the other members of the gang would come see what all the commotion was, and she'd be swarmed under by the much more skilled reinforcements.

She quickly took out the Thugs, as she was reviving the fallen guards with a healing spell she'd learned over the past week, and their aid turned it into a one-sided battle in her side's favor.

"Care to tell us who you are?" a guard asked her once they'd taken care of the Thugs.

"Not particularly, you should already realize I'm on your side against these guys. Before we go further, you should know that the Lieutenants are about three times as skilled, and there are five of them. I can only imagine what their Captain will be like, and let's not forget the Boss," she warned.

"Well, then you'll need our help. You might have saved us, but that doesn't mean you can take all the other ones down yourself." By some strange twist of fate, the apparent leader of this patrol was her brother. He'd already reached that rank in her original timeline, if her memory served her correctly. He would have achieved captaincy much sooner if not for a raid that was a half-failure... which was probably this one. This game/ the universe certainly had a twisted sense of humor.

She made absolutely sure not to be familiar with him, in address or tone. A random citizen informing her parents wasn't going to happen unless she did something completely insane. A member of the guard was fairly likely to inform her parents if she did anything even remotely dangerous. Her brother, pfft, she'd like to see him not tell them.

"Fine, but try not to get overwhelmed again," she said calmly. She was going out of her way to sound cold so he couldn't possibly connect her with his sister. She felt kind of bad about it, but she needed to get to the point where she could actually stand up against Chrysalis in a fight. She didn't want to sink to the level of a sneak attack, but she knew from experience that Chrysalis has no such compunctions, so getting good enough to protect herself and her friends was the only way to get this done.

From what she'd read, changeling society was virtually the polar opposite of Equestrian. The strong came out on top, and the weak, well, if they were lucky, they served under the winner, or were banished. The unlucky generally were left in a deadly location to die horribly, though nowadays this was only done to those who [b]really[/b] made someone who reached the top mad; banishment was much more common.

He nodded, and they made their way down to the second level. She was able to keep three of their foes occupied, so the Royal Guards could gang up on the remaining two Lieutenants. Together they wiped the Thug Lieutenants out, though not without injuries, which she healed up before they went on.

The guards were probably impressed by her performance thus far, and so, didn't try to send her back before they entered the third level, which had the Thug Captain.

He turned out to be a changeling that threw conjured knives with skillful use of levitation. She was forced to cover the guards as much as possible while they all wore away at the changeling's HP of 200.

He was equivalent to a Blade-wielding skill level of 40, by her estimation of his close-quarter abilities, making her only slightly better than him due to her Combat skill and relatively high Str and Agi. She couldn't use Fireball against him or her (she really couldn't tell) because the guards were jumping around too much for it. She might accidentally hit one of them, otherwise she'd have ended this fight in the first minute. However, they eventually beat him, getting 25 exp/bits for it, and 3 Skill points she used to raise Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 24/1000.

"Well, what say we rest for a minute while I heal you all?" Twilight asked.

They agreed, she healed them up, and while they caught their breath, her MP and Shd recharged.

"Were you the one who gift-wrapped those members of this gang?" one asked, having some kind of epiphany.

She simply nodded, not seeing a problem with revealing it.

This caused some murmuring, but they quieted down pretty quickly. She had been instrumental in defeating the Thug Captain, so it wasn't unbelievable.

"I think it's about time we moved on," Shining Armor said.

"I concur," Twilight said. Right, all her bars had reached capacity.

They moved on to the final basement floor.

The room that served as the Thug Boss' living quarters was rather lavishly decorated, and a gryphon sat on a throne-like chair.

"I take it you've defeated the others," the Thug Boss said, rather unconcerned.

"Yes, and we'll be taking you in as well," Shining Armor said.

"Don't count your chicks before they hatch, even my Captain never stood a chance against me in a fight. And from the volume and length of the scuffle, he gave you quite a bit of trouble, so I think this will rather bore me," Thug Boss said, lazily unsheathing two blades from his back.

He moved so fast that Twilight barely blocked in time, so she almost wasn't able to keep the gryphon from skewering her brother.

"Well, aren't you a surprise," the gryphon said.

"..." Twilight said nothing, giving no warning before using a trio of Fireballs against him at point-blank range.

She noticed that Thug Boss took significantly less damage than he should have. 500 HP should have dropped to 425, significantly less damage than a grunt but he was the leader. He was still at 480 though.

"My armor is fire-resistant," the gryphon explained, slowly forcing their deadlock to break. The guards were trying to hit him with their spears, but he was deflecting them with the other blade.

Twilight spammed regular Beam attacks, and cut his HP in half before he suddenly began taking far less damage, and dodging more frequently.

'Target is now Taking Opponent Seriously, small reduction to attack power, but a large increase to speed and defense.'

Were all her Bosses at the end of quests going to have weird status changes? She found him rather easier to hit, since her fighting style was focused more on maneuverability than brute force, but did only half her normal damage.

She spammed Beam where she could, and slashed at him when she saw an opening, but she'd have had much more trouble if the guards weren't drawing his attention and some of his attacks. However, once she fell behind on healing them, she was too busy dealing with the badly weakened gryphon to revive them.

Thug Boss had only 100 HP left, but he seemed to be enjoying himself.

"You know, I was under the impression that you ponies were weaklings, but you've been able to stand against me very well, and taken minimal wounds in the process. Not only that, but the wounds I've dealt don't even look as bad anymore, you have a healing factor don't you?" the gryphon asked.

Ah, yes, gryphons were renowned for loving a good fight, and she was certainly putting one up.

"I heal slightly more than three times faster than a normal pony if that's what you mean," she answered.

It took another 5 minutes, but she defeated him, just as reinforcements for the royal guards arrived. She'd been awarded 100 exp/bits and 15 Skill points for beating him. She raised Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 29/1000.

She explained the situation to the guards, healed the patrol she'd accompanied, and left before somepony decided to give her a more thorough interrogation. She was a terrible liar, Applejack was the only pony who trumped her in that respect.

She got 150 exp/bits and 6 Skill points for completing the quest, raising her level to 6. She dumped the points into Str and her somewhat neglected Positive Magic, respectively. Str 39, Int 39, Agi 37, Con 37, Will 30, Regen 37, Wis 29, Chr 31, Lck 29. HP 640, MP 744. Positive Magic. 32/1000. 'At 30/1000 or more you're about at the level of understanding expected of an adult unicorn.'

She'd gotten more than enough money and drops to get her new books.

[center]*** Canterlot Palace: Throne Room ***[/center]

Celestia had asked Shining Armor to meet her so she could ask him some questions about what was in his report.

"I understand you had help with that raid on the thieves' base," Celestia said.

"Yes, your Highness. A cloaked filly with impressive combat skill helped us. To be honest, she was the only reason we were able to bring the leader in. Apparently she was the one to gift-wrap that first batch as well. Though something about her rubbed me the wrong way, and not just how young she must have been," Shining Armor said.

"Ah, that explains the good mood the gryphon was in, they only get like that after a good fight. While it is a bit worrying that a filly would get herself involved, she handled herself admirably according to your report. Therefore, while it is a good idea to keep an eye out for her, we can leave her be for now," Celestia said, before dismissing Shining Armor.

"Hm, I have to wonder, how did a filly get that proficient in combat?" Celestia mused aloud. She shook her head, so long as they didn't infringe upon each other's rights, and were happy, her subjects could do what they chose with their lives. She was not a god, no matter what the common pony might think. She couldn't just manipulate ponies lives like a puppeteer, and even if she was a god, it would still be wrong to decide their lives for them.

'Chapter Progress: 15 Quests completed. 500 exp to next level. 1 star found.'

"What on Equis? Who said that?" Celestia asked, having been certain she was alone a minute ago.


	4. Time To Experiment

Twilight was wondering why she hadn't been getting any new Skills, and so, she read through some of her Hints. It turned out that Skills had level requirements as well, so she was unlikely to learn any new ones until Lv. 10 at least. Gee, that might have been nice to find out as part of the tutorial. Sometimes her patience with this game started to wear thin, and the reminder that it had given her a second chance wore increasingly thin as well as a deterrent to her snapping and blowing up a city block before reloading her last save.

She'd found one last quest. Once she did this one, she'd have to wait until later on in the timeline for more, assuming completing it didn't make any more show up. It turned out it was another extermination, Rats and a King Rat this time.

'Rats. Carnivorous rodents that also carry diseases that they themselves are unaffected by. Numerous attempts have been made to wipe them out due to their harmful nature, but they multiply like cockroaches.

King Rat. The leader of the Rat nest, and the biggest and strongest of them. Essentially the Rat version of a wolf pack's Alpha male.'

The warehouse that she was walking through to do the quest seemed fairly quiet, she wasn't even hearing any squeaking. It was strange. The Rats should have at least shown up on the mini-map by now. She stopped a moment, there was a gap between the crates just big enough for her to squeeze through, perhaps that was where they were hiding.

She'd been very accepting of what had happened so far, but she was more than a little annoyed now. These crates shouldn't have blocked the mini-map from showing the Rats. Was the game [i]trying[/i] to annoy her?

Once she got past the first few crates, the gap widened enough to walk normally, and then, Rats showed up, both on the mini-map, and off. An eye twitched, the game had violated it's own rules. It was on now. She was going to beat this thing if it killed her repeatedly!

If it was going to break it's own rules, then she didn't see the point in following the game's instructions. Therefore, she was going to exploit every loophole she found, and knock whoever made her life into a game down a few pegs!

She'd tolerated this nonsense before, but maybe she shouldn't have.

She wiped out the Rats with ease, venting the frustration that had slowly been building up with every little thing the game pulled, all 40 of them awarding 8 exp/bits. The King Rat was four times the normal size and had 1200 HP, but he went down fairly easily compared to the Thug Boss, awarding 80 exp/bits and 12 Skill points. She found a star in between two of the crates, awarding her another 6 Skill points. She got 100 exp for completing the quest, raising her level to 7.

She used the Stat points to raise Agi, Con, Regen. Str 40, Int 40, Agi 40, Con 40, Will 31, Regen 40, Wis 30, Chr 32, Lck 30. HP 650, Shd 50, MP 777. She used her Skill points to raise Positive Magic to 41/1000, and Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 34/1000. The descriptions changed again. For Positive Magic,

'At 40/1000 or more you're about at the level of understanding expected of a teacher at a regular school for magic.'

For Combat,

'At 30/1000 or more you're not half bad, you can take care of the small fry well enough if you're not swarmed under.'

For Resilience,

'At 30/1000 or more, you can take hits better than a large number of people, really weak attacks don't even hurt you anymore.' And for Blade-wielding 'At 30/1000 or higher, you could train some of the unskilled, not many, but some. You can at least hold out against a master for a minute or so.'

Now, she was going to look for stars with extreme prejudice. There had to be more than three in the city. Though now that she'd finished all the quests in the area, she'd have a lot more free time.

She'd read nearly every book that was at her house or in any library besides the one in the palace, which she couldn't just waltz into right now. She could only find a few books that she hadn't already read at least once at the market, though there were significantly more that she hadn't read twice.

She searched high, she searched low, she searched the best neighborhoods, and she searched the worst. Every basement, every attic, every alley, and every nook and cranny. She got 2 more stars for her trouble, rather small for her investment of time and effort, but maybe the game was designed to keep her from advancing any further until later on. Well it could go to Tartarus! She was advancing whether it liked it or not!

Str 42, Int 42, Agi 42, Con 42, Will 33, Regen 42, Wis 32, Chr 34, Lck 32. HP 670, Shd 50, MP 803. She raised Positive Magic to 47/1000, and Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 36/1000 with the Skill points. Perhaps she ought to raise the other Stats at the end with Lck when she got the chance, they were getting comparatively low.

She was reduced to re-reading her old books again, and experimentation to improve her knowledge. Before she knew it, she was just a month prior to the age of 5. Now, she was studying when Cadance first visited, just like the first time.

"Ah, you're here," Midnight Velvet, Twilight's mother, said as Cadance arrived.

Her parents had been juggling the days they could take off with each other and the breaks Shining Armor had in guard training to keep an eye on her, but as far as they knew, she was capable of going off by herself for an hour or so at a time. So, they could go to work, and leave watching her to a babysitter, who was especially trustworthy since she was a princess.

Celestia had wanted to keep the newest addition from getting snobby, so she was allowed minimal access to royal funds, and had to work for a living like normal ponies. Twilight had always thought this an over-reaction considering Cadance's personality, but then again, she didn't have to deal with Blueblood very often and Celestia had far more experience and wisdom.

Huh, now she found herself wondering what Celestia's level and Wis Stat would be in the game.

"She's usually very quiet, but some of her experiments with magic get a bit out of hoof. Also, she's got a habit of heading out for a walk every now and then. Be sure to keep an eye on her if she wants to go out for one," Twilight's father, Night Light, said.

They hurried off for work, they'd hit their limit of vacation days. Twilight looked up from her book as Cadance approached.

"Hi there, I'm Cadance, your new babysitter," Cadance said.

"Yes, and you're also my first babysitter," Twilight said, some enthusiasm entering her voice. She was slowly getting her old friends and acquaintances back. She'd missed everyone, especially Spike. She was never taking his existence for granted again.

"So, do you want to study, or play a game?" Cadance asked, encouraged by her charge's excitement.

"What kind of game?" Twilight asked, setting the book down after marking her place with a book mark.

"Hide-and-seek tag. It's like hide-and-seek, but you have to tag whoever's hiding," Cadance said.

Now, Twilight was mentally in her twenties, but she hadn't seen Cadance in so long, what was the harm in humoring her? Besides, just because she hadn't played in a long time, and the game was meant for kids, didn't mean it wouldn't be fun. She nodded an affirmative.

"Great! You hide first, I'll count to 20, and then come find you," Cadance said. Cadance turned around and covered her eyes, then started counting. Twilight hurried up the stairs. She knew a great hiding spot.

[center]*** 10 minutes later ***[/center]

"Aw, you found me." Twilight said mournfully. Cadance was better at finding her than she remembered.

"Well, now it's your turn," Cadance said cheerily.

"Alright, I'll count to 20 too," Twilight said.

After she counted to 20, it only took her 2 minutes to find Cadance. Granted Cadance's greater size and being less familiar with the house put her at a distinct disadvantage.

They played some board games after that which Twilight usually won.

It was a lot of fun, so Twilight was surprised when her parents got back. She was sorry to see Cadance leave, but she'd be back tomorrow.

"So, how was your day?" Midnight Velvet asked.

"We played some games, it was fun," Twilight responded.

A week after her birthday, they were all at the park for the day, which hadn't happened in her baseline. It was a lot of fun. They had a picnic and played a whole bunch of games. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had this much fun.

The months flew by, and before she knew it, it was only a week before her parents had shown her the accepted application to Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Which would be the day after her sixth birthday.

Her parents set a test on magical theory down in front of her. "Dear, could you take this test?" Midnight Velvet asked.

She set her book down, this one full of notes on her experiments, and completed the test in less than five minutes. She'd already gotten way past this stuff, it would be an insult to the princess if she hadn't gotten to the point where this stuff didn't challenge her anymore.

"Done," she said, handing it back.

Her parents looked it over, and their eyes widened.

"Is something wrong?" she asked. Perhaps she'd grown complacent and answered one of them wrong.

"No, nothing's wrong, you did great," Night Light reassured.

[center]*** Later that evening ***[/center]

"I can't believe she answered all of those, and that fast. They're supposed to be difficult for foals that age, and she wasn't even fazed," Night Light said, amazed.

"Well, she's definitely going to be accepted now, they only expect a foal to be able to answer two or three questions, not all ten," said Midnight Velvet.

"She's going to freak out over the entrance exam," Night Light warned.

"One thing at a time," Midnight Velvet answered.

[center]*** A week later ***[/center]

Twilight was waiting for the news, and was wondering how to go about this. She had no idea how much magic would be required to hatch Spike, but she'd rather not go into a Surge again. She really didn't want to turn her parents into plants again. Ironic that she'd done so, while she'd only made the examiners levitate. Turning Spike into a full-grown dragon made little sense, but Surges rarely did.

A Surge was what happened to somepony who lost control over their magic, usually from overextending themselves. It went wild and did things completely randomly.

Still, she couldn't actually do anything about it right now. Somehow, that didn't make her feel better.

Her parents walked into the room and proudly displayed the acceptance letter.

Despite her worries over what she should do in the exam, she acted ecstatic for her parents' sake. She knew they'd wanted this to be a birthday gift. She was actually happy about it as well, she could talk to Celestia about all this if nothing else, and she did miss her mentor.

Of course, she'd have to make the game mechanics visible to her somehow. Wait a minute, she'd gotten several stars, perhaps she'd unlocked a Cheat that did exactly that.

When she went to bed, the save menu opened automatically. It had four options. Save, Load, Main Menu, and Exit. As usual, she selected Save, as she did every day when she went to bed. Unlike normal, she didn't select Exit after that. Instead, she selected Main Menu.

Instantly, her surroundings were replaced by an empty black void. The same four lines of text appeared a moment later, and a new one, Cheats.

'Unlocked Helpful Twilight. This version of Twilight likes to help others, and she'll do anything to help her friends. Unlocked by completing at least 10 Side quests.'

She selected Cheats, and a list opened. Most of the cheats were still '?' but a few here and there were available.

One in particular caught her eye. Visibility, which would allow her to make the game mechanics visible to others by raising said visibility. This was exactly what she'd been looking for.

She turned it on, but kept the visibility at 0% for now, rendering them only visible to her.

She didn't think the average pony would believe her, they'd think she was crazy.

She exited Cheats, and Loaded her last save, before going to sleep.

[center]*** The next day *** [/center]

Shining Armor walked past his sister's room. She was reading a large book that he didn't even understand half of, and had a look of intense concentration on her face.

She was writing furiously on her paper, barely even looking at the notebook as she took notes.

He headed downstairs and asked his parents, "Why is Twilight studying like a madmare? She studies hard normally, but that seemed kind of extreme."

"She got her acceptance letter yesterday. She was thrilled at first, but she got like that after we told her about the entrance exam. After her initial freak out anyway," Night Light said.

"Oh, yeah, that would do it. Still, should she be studying things at that level? I don't understand half of some of those books," Shining Armor asked.

"She's just reached that level where we can't correct her homework anymore," Midnight Velvet said, half-joking.

[center]*** 1 week later ***[/center]

She spent the next week studying like crazy. She wanted to be ready for them to teach her the best spells. Finally, it was the day of the entrance exam.

'Chapter Progress: 1 quest complete. 700 exp to next level. 3 stars found.'

AN: Yes, I changed the name of Twilight's mother. I couldn't refer to both of them as Twilight now could I?


	5. The Entrance Exam

She was determined to ace the entrance exam today. She was still faced with what to do about Spike's egg, though. Maybe she could still pass without hatching Spike if she did exceptionally well on the rest of the exam. No, that would leave Spike as an egg. It looked like she was stuck hoping that her MP was high enough to hatch him without the Sonic Rainboom. Maybe it would be with her Efficient Spellcaster skill cutting the cost by 25%.

Anyway, she was going into the palace for the 'first' time. First for this lifetime anyway. Her parents were there for moral support more than anything else. She reached the gates and her parents showed the guards the necessary papers. They let her group inside, and she was quickly escorted to the examiner's building.

'Main Quest. Pass the Exam. Pass each part of the exam and become Celestia's student.'

She knew they would examine her theoretical knowledge, her intelligence, and then there was Spike's egg. In that order if she remembered correctly.

First was an examiner with a much harder test than the previous one. She knew all the answers to the questions off the top off her head at this point, surprising both her parents and the examiners.

Second was an examiner with an IQ test. "Now, I want you to try to solve the puzzle as quickly as possible," he said, only for her to display the already finished puzzle. He stared at her in disbelief.

"You might want to use a different one, I've done one of these before," she said, holding the puzzle out for him to take. He'd used this same puzzle the first time she did this, so it was probably the standard puzzle for this part of the exam.

He took the puzzle back, and gave her a different type of puzzle, she solved that one almost as fast. He tried a different puzzle, to the same result. Three types of puzzles later, he said, "Well, you're probably a lot smarter than anypony I've ever met, including me." He chuckled, apparently amused that all the puzzles he'd thrown at her, supposed to be difficult, were solved so easily.

She thought it was this easy because her Int was a little more than double what it had been the first time through. Which would make her IQ more than twice as high.

He asked to speak to her parents privately for a few minutes. She waited in a room back the way they'd come.

[center]*** With the examiner ***[/center]

"Let me be perfectly frank. I've never seen what just happened. She solved those puzzles with a total lack of effort. Most adults with some practice wouldn't be able to do any of these easily. I could tell she hadn't been practicing with these types of puzzles as well," the examiner said.

"That's good, isn't it? She really couldn't have done better on this part of the test then," Night Light said.

"I think what he means is that that's not normal. We don't have any super-geniuses in our families, so where did the genes for that kind of an intellect come from?" Midnight Velvet asked.

"Exactly. What's more, it's well-documented that most of the most brilliant ponies in history have been erratic at best. A lot of them could have tried to take over the nation they were from with their talents and often natural charisma. Luckily they've all been lacking in that sort ambition thus far," the examiner said.

"Are you suggesting our daughter would-" Night Light began, voice rising in anger.

"I'm only trying to warn you that she's got the potential to do so. We'll have to keep a close eye on her, since I've no doubt she'll be the first to truly pass the next test," the examiner cut him off.

"What do you mean?" Midnight Velvet asked.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell her, but the next test is hatching a dragon's egg. We don't actually expect a child to be able to hatch the egg of course. If they make it that far, they've already passed. We just want to see their reaction to failure. If they give up, we work on building up their confidence, if they get angry, then we work on helping them rein in their tempers.

However, I can guarantee that she'll be made the school's top student if she succeeds and hatches the egg." He chuckled. "We'll have to find a new test for the other foals, and a way of testing how she reacts to failure. Though if a dragon's egg isn't enough, we'll really have trouble finding something," he said, amusement lacing his words.

[center]*** 2 minutes and 30 seconds later ***[/center]

She was back at the auditorium with the examiners watching her. Just like the first time, a stallion pulled in a cart with a dragon's egg. She smiled at the MP cost. 1000 MP to hatch the egg, but only 750 MP thanks to Efficient Spellcaster. That would leave her with 33 to spare. A tiny amount by her standards, but the point was that she could do it without the boost from the Rainboom.

She concentrated, and fired a beam of magic at the egg, with the intent of hatching it. She succeeded, and the egg cracked in half to reveal a familiar baby dragon. She smiled proudly. The examiners and her parents had both lost composure and were openly gaping. There was a flash, and her eight-point star cutie mark was back. The rainbow-colored shockwave from Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom happened seconds after. Well, she'd hatched Spike, and managed to not turn her parents into plants. Certainly a win in her books.

After they'd regained their composure, the examiners immediately took her to Princess Celestia in her throne room.

"I understand you hatched the dragon's egg used in the exams," Celestia said, calmly sipping her tea.

It didn't matter that she'd technically been Celestia's student for years, she'd never been completely able to shake a feeling that she was doing something wrong or not well enough around her mentor. That was especially true since this was her mentor from before she knew Twilight.

"Yes, was I not supposed to?" she asked nervously.

"Technically no, you see, that test was meant to see how a pony would react to failure. Then the instructors at my school would know what to work on. However, you succeeded in something most adults wouldn't be able to do. Therefore, I would like to welcome you to the school, and to offer you the position of being my personal protege," Celestia said, smiling calmly.

"Really?" Twilight asked.

"Yes, really." Celestia's smile became reassuring.

Twilight looked over to her parents, who both nodded eagerly.

"YES!" she cried out, before clearing her throat and saying, "Yes," more quietly.

"Good. Now we'll have to have a more comprehensive test to see where exactly you are in your studies. As well as draw up a schedule for your classes with myself and the other teachers. You're going to have to stay at the castle as well. I look forward to teaching you," Celestia said.

"Right, thank you!" Twilight said.

'Quest Complete! +100 exp, +100 Bits, +5 skill points.'

She raised Positive Magic to 49/1000 with the points and Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 37/1000 with the points.

She went home, and they found Cadance and Shining Armor waiting there.

"How'd it go?" Shining Armor asked.

"Great! I did so well that Princess Celestia wants me to be her student. I'll be living there from now on. Speaking of which I have to pack," Twilight raced up to her room to do so.

"Wow, how'd she attract aunt Celestia's attention?" Cadance asked.

"She passed all three parts of the entrance exam, even hatching the dragon egg," Night Light said.

"Huh, that is impressive. Normally it would take 10 adults to do that, more to keep them from being exhausted afterwards. Dragons are naturally resistant to magic, but they need magic to hatch their eggs."

"Aunt Celestia has to hatch a few of them every year as part of the treaty between us. She's been the only one who could for a long time. I think Starswirl the Bearded and his apprentice Clover the Clever were the last ones, and even they'd be exhausted after just one each. How was Twilight afterwards?" Cadance asked.

"She was a little worn down, but she perked right back up a few minutes later," Midnight Velvet said.

"Wait a second, doesn't that mean Twilight has more magic at her age than Starswirl the Bearded did as an adult?" Shining Armor asked.

"Not necessarily. She might just have a stupidly fast recovery rate in comparison," Cadance said. They thought that over.

"Well, she has always healed quickly, more than twice as fast as normal," Night Light offered.

"That's probably it then. She just recovers more quickly than usual," Cadance said.

[center]*** The next day ***[/center]

Twilight had packed up her stuff, which consisted of her notes, her books, a couple pictures, and a few articles of clothing. The clothing was mainly a dress she could wear to some sort of fancy gathering.

She said goodbye to her parents and brother, hugging each of them. Cadance lived at the palace, so Twilight would probably see her more than the others.

She levitated the traveling bag behind her as she walked over to the palace. Right, now to figure out how to tell the Princess. If she put it off, she'd never get around to it. She supposed her best bet was to just turn the Visibility to 100% and explain herself.

She'd have to talk to the princess alone, though. Anyone else would likely think she was crazy, no matter how much evidence she showed them. Not that she could show them that much.

She made her way to the throne room. She'd also be looking for more stars and quests while she was here studying. There were a lot of places to hide one in the palace. Though something told her quests would be slim pickings for a while.

A guard led her to Celestia's private quarters. She already knew where it was, but there was no way of explaining how she knew. So she played along and pretended not to know.

When the guard left, Twilight turned to Celestia and said, "Princess, there's something I need to tell you."

Celestia waited for her to continue, and Twilight turned the Visibility up to 100%. She also opened up her Stats screen and explained it's function. Celestia's eyes widened.

"I see, your life is a game," she said.

"Yes, but wait, do you have experience with this sort of thing?" Twilight asked.

"No, but when you've seen everything I have, you stop being surprised by most everything. Though I don't like the idea that we may not have any control over our destinies, I suppose we've had little to begin with. Besides which, you have both foreknowledge of events and a great deal of flexibility. So, you certainly have a great deal of control." Celestia answered.

Twilight explained as much as she could about the game to the princess, showing a screen to demonstrate if possible.

"Hm, that explains a lot. Did you become my student the first time?" Celestia asked.

"Yes, it took a boost from the Sonic Rainboom to hatch Spike's egg the first time," Twilight answered.

"I suggest that you utilize these other Avatars to study aspects of magic you have trouble with. Your Genius, Pegasi, and Earth Pony Avatars should prove most useful in this regard." Celestia suggested.

They discussed various aspects of the game for another fifteen minutes, and then Celestia gave Twilight the test sheets, before having to take off for the Day Court.

Twilight spent the next few hours doing the incrementally more difficult problems, handing it in to the princess the next day. After looking through it, she nodded, and drew up a schedule for her student. From 7:00 a.m-10:00 a.m. she'd be tutored privately with Celestia. From 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. she'd be taught by the academy professors. After that she was free to do as she wished.

Twilight agreed to this, and the teaching began the next day.

She learned quite a bit since Celestia was teaching her a lot of new material at the level she'd been at. The professors taught her about as much together.

The palace was indeed slim pickings for quests, there wasn't a single one to be found, but not so for stars. She found a grand total of 6 stars! 4 in the library, one in her quarters here at the palace, and one in Celestia's quarters.

Str 48, Int 48, Agi 48, Con 48, Will 39, Regen 48, Wis 38, Chr 40, Lck 38. HP 790, Shd 50, MP 941. She raised Positive Magic to 55/1000.

'At 50/1000 or more, you've reached the level of understanding required of a professor at Princess Celestia's School for gifted unicorns.'

She raised Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 47/1000. For Combat,

'At 40/1000 or more, you're adept enough that the only way grunts could beat you is by attrition.'

For Resilience,

'At 40/1000 or more, you can take hits that would knock down a normal person and stay standing.'

And for Blade-wielding

'At 40/1000 or more, you're good enough to give any amateur some pointers.'

Her studying was paying dividends to her experiments as well as sating her natural curiosity. It suddenly came clear to her how and why so many of the experiments went wrong.

She spent the years between becoming Celestia's student and going to Ponyville in this way, visiting her family every Saturday.

One day she was wondering if there was a way to divide herself into two so she could get more studying done. This led to a series of experiments before she created a spell that allowed her to split herself into multiple copies of herself.

The copies were identical in appearance, abilities, personality, and memories. They also obeyed the original and gave her their memories upon their destruction. However, her MP was divided amongst them equally and each cost 100 MP even after Efficient Spellcaster, an additional 5 MP was drained from the copy's MP per minute, completely disregarding the Regen stat for MP, making the lifespan of a clone a maximum of 84 minutes (1 hour and 24 minutes) if she made just one. They were also almost stupidly fragile. Bumping their heads into a doorframe was enough to dispel them. She theorized that Resilience didn't affect the damage because bumping one's head into a doorframe could be construed as self-inflicted damage. That, or Resilience didn't apply to clones at all.

They weren't really useful in a combat situation unless you were trying to distract your enemy, or you were already so much better than them that you could completely avoid their attacks. Observation and scouting would be what they were best for, due to returning their memories to the original after their demise, but not much else.

She did speed along her studying with them though. She didn't really use most of her MP over the course of a day normally, so she could have a clone study while she was experimenting.

She was also waiting for Spike to be old enough that the Princess would let Twilight raise him from that point on. She was becoming a bit lonely for her friends she had yet to get back.

Well, she was sure the princess would decide she was ready soon enough.

[center]***Celestia's Quarters***[/center]

Celestia was a bit saddened when her student told her she was in a game. From what she'd been told Twilight had died at least once already. She'd managed to prod Twilight into confessing that she was the one who'd helped Shining Armor with that raid, only after a promise not to tell him or her parents was extracted from her in return.

She'd also found out that Twilight had fought a Queen Spider and King Rat. However, she was fighting to get to a level (ability level, not Level) where she could protect not only herself, but her friends and family as well, not out of any enjoyment of fighting.

She seemed to have been affected deeply by having been killed. Celestia also got the impression she herself had been involved somehow. Whenever she herself accidentally brought the conversation in that direction, there was something about how her student avoided the subject of just how she had died the first time. There was always a strange look in her eyes, as if she was trying to protect Celestia from something.

She supposed that if her student wanted to keep it a secret, then she shouldn't pry. She'd just have to trust her student like her student had trusted her.

AN: Yeah, I gave her a magic version of the Shadow Clone jutsu from Naruto, but it's really only going to be used for studying or scouting. It's a massive drain on her resources and she doesn't get a clone's unused MP back when it goes poof. She won't use it in a fight unless she's out of options.


	6. The Teenage Years

Twilight had gotten guardian status of Spike from the princess. She was quite used to both the teasing from the other foals who seemed to be jealous of her position and annoyed when she didn't try to get some advantage from it, and the nobles who kept trying to get her on their side with offers that were all failing dismally to so much as pique her interest. It was transparently obvious that they were just looking for some more influence. She was getting sick of putting up with them, but bore with it.

They were getting increasingly persistent, and she was starting to remember why she'd locked herself away from others socially. She could always just ignore them completely, but that wouldn't make them go away.

The nobles and the ponies who kept trying to 'befriend' her were convinced that there was a price to her loyalty. She didn't think anything short of torture would make her betray the princess. She had no real ambition, so power didn't interest her. She already had access to one of the largest libraries of magic (or libraries period really) in the world, so they wouldn't be able to get to her that way. Her parents were technically nobility, and she'd never been greedy, so money didn't interest her.

Though if they threatened her family, then they were dead ponies. She could handle herself against any grunts they sent against her, but her parents were civilians and her brother was only home about half the time. Several of the ponies who had been near her had moved away at the minor flare of negative intent at the thought alone. Spike looked at her with concern for his pseudo-older sister/mother.

She tamped down on her feelings. The nobles wouldn't go that far, and the students weren't stupid enough to try after seeing her deal with some non-unicorn bullies who'd been picking on a few of her less offensive classmates. She didn't like them, but she didn't particularly dislike them either, so she had helped them. She hadn't even needed to use magic. Good thing too, if she had they'd be dead and she didn't want to go that far if there was any alternative.

Some of those watching had muttered that it was impossible for a unicorn to be this strong or fast. Earth ponies certainly had an advantage due to the natural passive effect of their magic that made them stronger and hardier under normal circumstances. However, unicorns also had an extremely minor effect that was similar, except it also raised speed, and her Str was more than three times the average for Earth Ponies to begin with.

No one had picked on her for a week after that, but they'd started again once they realized she wouldn't react when they called [b]her[/b] names. Cowardly, but not stupid. Still, she wasn't a perfect judge of character - they might be stupid enough. The nobles had certainly proven they could stoop pretty low, so there was always the chance they could be willing to go that far, believing she wouldn't report it to the princess.

The princess had to do damage control all the time, she was the only reason the citizens hadn't overthrown the nobles and made her completely in control of all the affairs of the kingdom. Unfortunately, the nobles didn't recognize the fact that they were only tolerated at the princess' behest, and kept trying to sneak laws that would benefit them past her. Completely unsuccessfully so far in both timelines, thank the Creator.

She recalled Luna remarking that the nobles were far bolder in the present than they'd been before her... episode. She should really push this to the back of her mind and concentrate on her studies, though. She'd kill them if they targeted her family, and leave them alone if they didn't. She wondered if dying had affected her more than she thought, she wasn't this bloodthirsty before. She hunkered down and forced herself to ignore the approaching ponies. Probably here for more teasing, or a group of ponies that wanted to befriend her for her connections. Or perhaps the nobles were switching to trying to get to her through their children now.

She was quite surprised when they were slightly less snobby than usual. "Hey, we want to duel you. We heard you were good at fighting," the leader of the group said. Now that she looked at them, she thought they were upper-class-ponies from the school. They looked less snobby because they had less need to make themselves feel superior, because they already had confidence in their abilities.

"Well, I'll have to ask the princess, dealing with bullies is one thing, but a formal request for a duel is another," she answered.

"I see, you think you're better than us just because you're the princess' student," the leader said angrily.

"Wrong, I do not think you are inferior. I simply don't think we should make this into a street brawl. However, if you attack me I will defend myself. If you'd just wait half an hour, we can make this a formal duel and-" she was cut off by a spell that narrowly missed her cheek, and almost hit Spike, who'd only just ducked in time.

"Spike? Would you go over there for a minute? I have to teach these egotistical nitwits a lesson about what happens when you try to hurt somepony I care about," she said, smiling pleasantly as she gestured over to another bench some distance away.

[center]*** Challenger's Perspective ***[/center]

Well, they'd finally gotten her riled up enough to fight. Now to see what she was made of. He was the leader of the trio that was known as the best duelists in the school and also was a medium-level noble's son. He wasn't going to lose to some child-prodigy from a minor noble line and several years younger.

Besides, he'd found her weak point. She completely lost it if somepony tried to hurt a friend or family member. Admittedly, almost hitting the dragon had been dumb luck. He had been so focused on the uppity under-class-pony that he hadn't even noticed it. When he won this fight, the rumors that this little bookworm could rival his group would quiet down. Even on the off-chance he lost the fight, he could still tell his father what he had learned. Either way, he'd gain something today.

Still, he couldn't quite believe it when she said, "To make it a test for myself, I won't use magic. I'll even disable the passive effects of my magic."

His eyes narrowed. That certainly sounded like a bluff. There was no way she thought she could take all three of them with no magic at all. Besides, completely blocking off one's magic was something most unicorns not only never bothered to learn, but couldn't do, because it required a ludicrous degree of control.

"Well? Are you going to strike first? Or shall I?" she asked, still smiling pleasantly.

They rushed her, and cast a trio of regular Beam spells, only for her to dodge them effortlessly.

"You'll have to be faster than that, or use a spell with an auto-target sub-directive," she advised, completely unconcerned that she'd been fired at.

That was impossible. They were quick casts even by adult standards, and she'd dodged them as if they were moving at a snail's pace. They shot a flurry of spells, but she dodged them all, the suddenly she was in their midst, and swept their hooves out from under them.

"I could simply let you exhaust yourselves, but I thought I'd speed the process along." That pleasant smile had never left her face, but it wasn't conveying happiness at all, nor was it smug. It was frigidly cold, completely uncaring.

They had to make a plan, she was mopping the floor with them. They moved back a few paces to confer.

"Is your strategy meeting done yet?" she asked as they approached again.

"You might say that," he said, and they leapt into action. The other two would keep her occupied with spells, then he'd time his new teleport spell just right and deck her from behind. Not the most elegant plan, but it should prove effective. He teleported at the moment she'd dodged the spells and tried to hit her, only for her to hit his hoof and completely redirect the attack away from her. He skidded backwards several feet from the combined force, and the under-class-pony quickly dealt with the other two members of his group, also pushing them back.

At this point, the entirety of those who were outside were watching the fight rather than studying.

"How are you so good?" he asked her. She wasn't even breathing any harder than when the fight began. He shuddered to imagine how badly they would've lost if she'd used magic or gone on the full offensive.

"Magic is still my strong point, but what if I'm in a situation where I can't cast? Or where I won't be able to cast a Protection spell in time? I'd need to be able to defend myself without using magic. I should really thank you. You're supposed to be the best the school had to offer in terms of duelists. If I can beat you three-on-one without magic, I'll be well on my way towards my goal," she responded.

So that explained it; but wait, she had suppressed the passive effect of her magic, which meant she was normally even better than this. If that was the case, then they wouldn't stand a chance if she really wanted to beat them.

He signaled to the others to back off. "We'll finish this another time. See you around."

He'd definitely be telling his father about this.

[center]***Twilight's Perspective***[/center]

Well, that certainly indicated that she'd made progress. She'd managed to send them packing without even using magic. Still, she was certainly not going to be a match for a serious fighter if she'd had this kind of trouble with those three.

Still, an improvement was always good. She'd confirmed that she was only rewarded when the enemy's HP dropped to 0, which signified death. Thus, it came as no surprise when she got no reward from that fight. Though her rep. with Canterlot had risen a fair amount. With Spike, who was openly gaping, as well. Probably because of her audience of the other students.

She levitated Spike on her back. Then she teleported inside the castle before they snapped out of it and besieged her with questions.

Spike shook it off as they reappeared in the library. A dusty, relatively unused section, that would be difficult to find even for the librarians, as she had only found it by accident even the second time as the princess' student. It required going through a small space that she simply teleported past, and pushing in a certain block of stone on the wall to open a passage. Then you came out of the passage to an alcove that could only be accessed by teleporting or knowing exactly how to get there.

This was where she'd found several texts that had always eluded her before. She figured it was about time she showed Spike, and assumed the Princess already knew about it since this castle wasn't even built when she was made ruler.

"That was awesome!" Spike cried out.

"Yeah, but I'm still not at the level I want to be," Twilight responded. She wished he hadn't said that so loudly, but it was rather unlikely that anyone could hear him if he screamed.

"Come on, you should be happy that you're that good. You don't have to be perfect at everything," Spike said.

"Believe me, I am, but that doesn't mean I couldn't be better," she responded. The 47/1000 meant she wasn't even at a twentieth of her full potential.

"Alright. Say, where are we?" Spike asked.

"Oh, I found this place a while ago. It's great for studying because it has a bunch of books that I've never read, it's quiet, and it's not very well known. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about it," she said.

"Of course, I can keep a secret," Spike said huffily.

"Right." She conjured up some gems, magically costly, but nothing to her now, for him to munch on. "Have a snack, and try to find a book you think would be interesting," she told him, before picking out a couple books and reading them herself.

[center]***A Noble Manor in the upper-class district of Canterlot***[/center]

"Father, I picked a fight with that unicorn. The one you and the other nobles have been trying to bribe into being put under your influence. And I discovered a few interesting pieces of information," the leader of the trio told his father, a medium-level noble.

"You didn't have to phrase it like that, but go on." The noblepony sighed.

"She was not completely against the idea of a fight, but wanted clearance from her teacher for an official duel first," the son said.

"Hmm, it seems that Celestia already has considerable influence on her then. She'd always say she simply wasn't interested in our offers before, trying to stay as neutral as possible," the noblepony said.

"She changed her mind when I accidentally almost hit the baby dragon under her care with a spell. I'd been annoyed by her attitude and the rumors that she could best my group, so I hadn't even noticed him," the son continued.

"So she bites back when bitten, or more precisely, when those she has ties with are bitten," the noblepony mused.

"Yes, that was my conclusion as well. However, she announced her intention to avoid using magic, even the minor passive effect it has on unicorns. Considering her performance even without using spells, she likely followed through on even that," the son said.

"How did she do?" the noblepony asked, curious.

"She handled us easily, I'd almost say toyed with us. If she were to fight with even the passive boost, I'd estimate it would take twice my group to stop her. More if she actually cast spells," the son answered, a hint of annoyance and something that bordered on fear in his voice.

"Hmm, well it sounds like Celestia has been teaching her student some extracurriculars. If offers aren't going to work, perhaps force will. We'll need to get a fairly large group of fairly skilled fighters to take her down if she was outmatching your and your lackeys that badly." the noble mused.

"What did you have in mind?" the son asked.

"Well, a few of the other nobles will try and go after her like this if I give them the information. I'll be sure to get something out of the deal. I'll watch how the fighters they send against her do, then use that to assess the kind of fighter I should send against her.

Skill is important, but fighter often have a rock-paper-scissors type strength and weakness system. Long-range fighters beat close-range fighter. Fast fighters beat tough fighters.

It's a matter of selecting the right warrior as much as finding one who's more skilled in order to beat someone in a fight. From the sound of it, she's a close-to-mid-range fighter who's very fast compared to most normal ponies, but I'll need a bit more information than that to work with." the noblepony said.

'Chapter Progress: 0 quests completed. 0 stars found. 600 exp to next level.'

AN: It should be noted that Twilight has nothing but her own skills to compare anyone else's to as a ruler, therefore, her perception of her skill in relation to others will be skewed, against her in this case. She's naturally paranoid and lacking in confidence, thus it makes sense that she'll assume that she's worse than she actually is, or that her opponent is better than they are.

She died and got a second chance, if you'd been killed with one attack while protecting a loved one, you'd be pretty unwilling to let harm come to any of your friends or family if you could help it, especially since she knows what happens if she dies, but she doesn't know what happens if somepony else dies now that her life is a game.

The average pony has the equivalent of a Combat skill of 5/1000, those three from the fight scene each have a rating of 12/1000, still less than a third of Twilight's rating. Plus, her Stats are about 5 times theirs in terms of Str, Agi, further widening the gap in ability level.


	7. Twilight Gets Ambushed Repeatedly

Twilight was heading out for her weekly visit to her parents' house. Little did she know, an ambush was waiting for her. In fact, several ambushes from various nobles who wanted to see if she was as tough as she was supposed to be were waiting for her.

That is, until a quest popped up from the environment. The game had been convenient like that.

'Prove Your Ability. Fend off all the Fighters waiting to ambush you at various points.

Fighters. Those with more skill at fighting than your average Thug, but less than a Thug Lieutenant. Generally they act as mercenaries.'

She accepted, and was suddenly glad that Spike had stayed to organize the section of the library she frequented. Namely, the tower she lived in. The mini-map was swarming with enemies, and the counter was over 100.

[center]*** Head goon's perspective ***[/center]

The job was simple enough, wait for a lavender filly with a purple and green dragon who'd be walking along this route today, draw her into this alley, and prod her into a fight. Probably some more inter-house politics, but he didn't care as long as he got paid. The others were the same. They'd been warned (and paid extra for) the fact that she was apparently pretty good at fighting.

They were primarily a motley lot in terms of equipment and training, but he and a couple others of this particular group of 8 were good enough to give some of the intermediate level Royal Guards a beating. Plus he'd gotten some armor recently that was strong enough to take the weight of a cart falling on it and not be scratched.

He'd noticed a lot of other groups moving about, but he didn't see why he needed to worry about it. She couldn't possibly be good enough that it would warrant the entire underworld in Canterlot being put on alert. Speak of the devil, there she was now, though the baby dragon wasn't with her.

She was humming a tune and smiling slightly. He didn't see anything to be concerned about, she was 12, how bad could she be?

He approached her. "Excuse me, could you come with me a second miss?" he asked pleasantly.

"Certainly." she answered. He suppressed a shiver, he had suddenly gotten the feeling that she knew about the ambush. That was crazy, how could she possibly know?

[center]***Twilight's Perspective*** [/center]

An earth pony had asked her to come with him, and though she was well aware that he was a Fighter leading her into an ambush, she didn't want to fight in the middle of the street either, so she played along. Honestly, did she really come across as that gullible?

She followed him into an alley, and found herself surrounded by a group of 8 that was a mixed bag of races.

"Sorry, but we were hired to knock you down a few pegs." the pony who led her here said, before pulling out a small knife.

The other Fighters followed suite with their own weapons or charging up their horns.

Twilight simply smiled... and beat them all more or less effortlessly. Each awarded 12 Exp/Bits. It appeared this was another quest where reducing their HP to 0 was only a knock-out. The counter was now 142, she'd level up at least once before this was over.

She walked down the streets toward the various ambushes, and wiped them out. She reached level 8 by the time the counter dropped to 100, but since she'd level up again before the quest was over by her calculations and she wanted to see a noticeable improvement in her ability in comparison to these clowns she waited on spending her points. When she reached level 9, she spent the points in Stats and Skills.

'Str 50, Int 51, Agi 50, Con 51, Will 39, Regen 50, Wis 38, Chr 40, Lck 38. HP 840, Shd 50, MP 994.'

She was mainly focusing on raising her first four Stats and Regen, sine they were the most influential on her abilities so far. She also raised Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 50/1000, while she raised Positive Magic to 58/1000. For Combat,

'At 50 or more, you're more skilled than most fighters who are in the Royal Guard or are mercenaries.'

For Resilience,

'At 50 or more, you won't be hurt by jumping from the second floor of a building.'

For Blade-wielding,

'At 50 or more, you can out-duel a regular swords fighter even with a much smaller blade.'

She was noticeably improved after that. Unfortunately she was very late by time she beat the last of them. That left her sprinting to her parents house, all but ignoring the game when the quest completion pop-up appeared.

She was awarded with 100 Exp/Bits and 4 Skill points that she used to raise Positive Magic to 59/1000, and Combat, Resilience, and Blade wielding to 51/1000.

She was gasping for breath when she reached the front door, she opened the door and went inside, closing it behind her. Her father turned to her, presumably to reprimand her for being late, when he stopped and stared.

It was at that moment that Twilight realized that she'd forgotten to wait for the minor wounds she'd sustained to heal, or clean the dried blood off her face.

She was loading her last save as soon as she got past them. They weren't supposed to find out about this facet of her life.

"Twilight... what happened?" Night Light asked.

She struggled to come up with a convincing story, since telling him what had actually happened couldn't possibly end well. To make matters worse, her mother walked in, after gasping, she rushed over to Twilight, and began to use several healing spells on the cuts and bruises, while demanding to be told what had happened.

Twilight was out of other options, so she rushed past them, and went up to her room, before using the bed to go to the main menu.

She decided she really needed a rest from all this. Perhaps it was time to use some of the other Avatars.

'Mercenary Twilight unlocked. This version lost her parents at an early age, and became a mercenary for hire, generally being employed in the Gryphon and Minotaur KIngdoms. Unlocked by defeating over 200 enemies and reaching a Combat skill of 40 or more.'

Yeah, not using that one. Which one was she using first though? Genius, Swordsmare, Pegasi, or Earth Pony? She eventually decided to do Pegasi, Earth Pony, and Swordsmare, then Genius. Swordsmare would let her polish her combat skills, after she studied Earth Pony and Pegasi magic in close detail. Genius would then give her more insight into their workings.

She selected Earth Pony in the Avatars this time. She wondered what exactly it would be like, not being able to use spells.

[center]*** A Month In ***[/center]

Well, not being able to use unicorn magic was not fun at all. The superior attitudes of the other nobles towards her family for producing an earth pony was ignored for the most part. Some ponies just weren't worth the space they occupied. She was not really bothered by insults directed at her anymore.

She was quite interested in her magic as an earth pony, and was soon able to control it and use it for the feats mentioned in the description, and greater ones. She could make a full grove of full-grown trees, though it exhausted her. She experimented on herself a great deal, and found out a lot.

She was essentially taking a vacation for this Avatar and Pegaus Twilight, so she didn't do any quests. She ended up becoming Celestia's student after a particularly impressive feat of Earth Pony magic. In which she made a grove of trees grow for the first time. She informed this version of her mentor of her situation as well, including the fact that she was originally a unicorn.

She had found a number of different books available in this version of her life, and once she'd gotten what she could out of them, she switched to her Pegasus Avatar.

Weather manipulation was interesting, and cloud-walking was convenient. She was quite glad the sneering attitudes of the nobles, while not completely gone, were less pronounced towards this Avatar. Though that implied that they thought of ponies in a unicorn, pegasi, earth pony hierarchy.

She essentially proved to be the pegasus equivalent to her unicorn self, able to control an entire storm system, and, though trumped by Rainbow Dash, a fast flyer. She found more books that hadn't been in her baseline, and sucked them dry as well. She had to admit, she [i]really[/i] like flying.

Her experiments were getting her a great deal of new information she was sure wasn't in the books. She could perform experiments with an understanding of the other types of pony magic, and she could do experiments she wouldn't be able to on others because she didn't have to worry about killing herself and she had her own full compliance.

She once again became Celestia's student, and informed her mentor of her situation after she controlled that weather system. She was sure she was sure she was close to a breakthrough with magic in general. She thought about skipping straight to Genius, but decided to wait. Swordsmare would likely have some books that could use studying as well.

When she thought that she'd gotten all she could out of her Pegasus Avatar, she switched to Swordsmare. There, the timeline began to deviate significantly from Basic. Each of her Avatars had come with a slight personality shift. Earth Pony had been less nervous, Pegasus had been a bit more short-tempered, but Swordsmare was a lot different. She was a lot more interested in weapons, and was actually somewhat keen to fight. Enjoyed fighting even.

She did her best to tamp down on these urges she felt were uncharacteristic of her. Though she did display her 'talent' with blades in order to join the Royal Guard with her brother. She was quite glad to learn some new tricks for fighting, both with and without magic. She climbed quite high into the ranks between her high combat ability, and tendency to follow orders to the letter. She even garnered the attention of the Princess, who had been watching her spar with a more senior member in front of the new recruits.

She had showed off a bit, she was embarrassed to say. She'd moved out of the way of an a thrust, (they were of course using practice swords) and then back in the way, only to redirect the force past her, and counter with a blow that snapped her opponent's wooden blade.

Since her Combat and Blade-wielding were 10 points above even what was expected of a captain, he could handle most of the members of the guard fairly well before she'd been taught their techniques and combat style, and now that she knew it, she could exploit the holes in it. There weren't many unless you were much more skilled, like she was, but they were there. The lesson here, was that no style was invincible, except perhaps a style that was of switching between dozens of other styles on the fly.

She had found that the Royal Guard had a personal library of techniques, in addition to the books in the library that hadn't been there in her other Avatars' worlds. She had to reach a certain rank in order to access most of them, and so, settled for mastering those that were available to her, resulting in a much improved combat ability, and a style that as a hybrid of her own improvised style and the Royal Guard's. It was an all-rounder style, it was good at everything, but not a mastery of anything.

Once she'd reached Lieutenant rank, she could access the advanced techniques, and was asked by the princess to become part of her guard. She accepted, and notified this version of her predicament as well. This one was slightly less accepting, but soon believed her. She achieved the rank of captain at the age of 14, the youngest ever. She had a month to study the highest level techniques, before the princess sent her a letter saying.

'Captain Twilight Sparkle, I would like you to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration. Please try to make some friends, there aren't any rules against it.'

Well, as much as she wanted to see her friends, she still wanted to give Genius a spin. Perhaps Politically Savvy could help with her problems with the nobles in Enhanced as well. She nodded to herself, deciding that she should wait, despite the fact that a little voice in the back of her head was saying she was getting as bad as she was before she met her friends. She was not, she'd make it up to them, though they were unlikely to ever find out.

She'd only told the princess because she was over 1000 years old and could be expected to handle something like this without going crazy or anything. Staring the realization that your life was a game and therefore pointless beyond being amusing for some being who was watching you struggle through your life was not something she wanted to happen to them. She was not telling her friends.

[center]*** Several Months as Genius Twilight later ***[/center]

She'd done it. She'd figured out how to use the other two races magic as any one of the three pony races. She'd become the princess' student again in this way, informed her mentor, and found a star.

'Str 51, Int 52, Agi 51, Con 52, Will 40, Regen 51, Wis 39, Chr 41, Lck 39. HP 860, Shd 50, MP 1017.'

She raised Positive Magic to 62/1000.

'At 60 or more, you understand magic better than most ponies ever will, including most scholars.'

She raised Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 52/1000.

She'd even managed to teach a select few of each race to use the other races magics, though these generally had to have large mana pools and intellects to be able to use even minor amounts of magic that was not their race's.

She consistently found herself struggling to dumb the method down so anypony could use it. It was difficult enough to make it possible, making it simple was proving insurmountable. She was practically buried in her research, though she had hatched Spike since she'd been able to locate his egg, had access to unicorn magic, and convinced them to let her hatch his egg this time.

She had not, unfortunately, been able to do so, since she had not had those prerequisites in Earth Pony, Pegasi, or Swordsmare.

This time, her personality was much the same, but everypony else was about 10 IQ points more intelligent than Basic. The libraries were much larger and had a ton of new books that she read in her spare time. Once she'd sucked this one dry too, she moved on to Politically Savvy.

The nobles were downright obnoxious in this Avatar's world compared to baseline or even Enhanced. She did however, benefit from her mentor's tutelage in the political arts. Once she had given her mentor the explanation of her predicament, she suggested that Twilight use this to repeat the Politically Savvy Avatar until she had decades of experience. She responded by saying, "That's what you said the first few times too." with a slight smile.

She was getting that Cheshire smile mentioned in the description, a quirk for this Avatar, but she did her best not look to unhinged. She also noticed that quests she'd already accomplished didn't show up again, so the Main Quest for becoming the princess' student never appeared. Probably to keep her from taking too much advantage of this function of the game. Once she had technically had 30 years of education and experience with politics, she finally returned to the Main Menu to try that day she'd left Enhanced at again.

She'd unlocked a few new Avatars, it seemed.

'Royal Guard Captain Twilight. This version rose to the rank of Captain and was stationed in Canterlot. She's sent by the princess to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration, much to her confusion. The reason became readily apparent when Nightmare Moon sealed her elder sister in the sun, and announced that dawn would never come. The captain tried to fight her, but found herself outmatched. Unlocked by reaching the rank of Captain in the Royal Guard.

Politician Twilight. This version is a master politician, and one of the few Avatars that might break away from Princess Celestia. She's signed a treaty with the nobles that amounts to this: They leaver her alone, she doesn't ruin them all and take all their possessions and land holdings through a series of legal maneuvers no one but a master lawyer could even hope to block. That's how dangerous she is. Unlocked by obtaining at least a decade's experience with political machinations.

Magic Thief Twilight. This version can copy a spell and even a different species' brand of magic simply by seeing it. Unlocked by learning magic of at least two types. (Unicorn, Pegasi, Earth pony, Draconiquis, etc.)'

Right, let's try this again. She thought as she selected Continue, and chose her Enhanced Save File. She'd named each Save File after the Avatar who she'd been using when she saved.

She was quite sure she could manage to take care of the Fighters without the whole debacle that followed this time... hopefully anyway.

'Chapter Progress: 1 quest completed. 1 star found. 500 exp to next level.'

AN: Well, next chapter she goes through the ambushes again, but with foreknowledge and improved combat ability, and then she finally goes to Ponyville.


	8. Let's Try This Again

Twilight started the day the same way as the first time, she studied what material she could find that she hadn't already covered, then left Spike to organize after promising him all the jewels he could eat later. Since she now had over 1000 MP, she could do that for two Spikes.

She didn't get the quest pop-up this time, but she did get the enemies appearing on the min-map, though not the experience this time, it seemed she only got the Exp and Bits if the opponents weren't some of those she'd fought and beaten before.

She found the fights child'splay to win compared to before, and they'd been pretty easy then. She didn't get a scratch on her way over, and wasn't even breathing hard or late when she got there.

This was a bit of a gamble, if they were sufficiently cowed by her display, the nobles would leave her alone, but if they were really afraid, they'd try and pull something. Framing her for some crime or other and demand that she be placed in jail or having her magic stripped, without a trial if they could manage, and by then it would be too late, though she could just load her last save and avoid that if necessary, but she'd really prefer not to be stuck in a loop where she'd have try to avoid that and load her previous save if it failed.

She arrived at her parents house right on time for her weekly visit, and gave a perfect impression that nothing was wrong. She was a terrible liar verbally, she could barely even omit details if she was directly questioned, but she was quite good at masking her feelings when necessary.

"So how was your day?" Night Light asked.

"Not bad so far. How have you guys been?" she asked, she'd been in other Avatars' worlds for so long, that she was a bit unsure just what her family's situation had been when she 'left,' for lack of a better word. She'd have to remedy that.

"Shining Armor's been doing well in the Royal Guard, he'll make a Lieutenant in the next couple years." Midnight Velvet said, a hint of pride entering her voice.

"I'm sure he'll reach Captain eventually." Twilight said, being absolutely sure, since he'd done so before, though not yet in this world's timeline.

"Actually, there was something we wanted to talk to you about Twilight." Night Light said.

Twilight had rather thought they were hiding something, she'd gotten pretty good at reading others expressions and body language during her time as Politically Savvy. She wondered how bad the news was. She couldn't tell because the two had some practice controlling their expressions and body language.

"Go on." she said, letting her calm smile slip into a neutral expression.

"The other nobles have been pestering us to make you join up with one of them. They just want you to try and get to Celestia herself, of course." Midnight Velvet began.

"I'd figured as much." Twilight responded, might as well tell them, they were going to find out anyway if they already knew about the fact that the nobles besides them were after her for influence.

"You knew?!" both her parents asked at the same time.

"They'd approached me with offers, but I'd rejected everyone's, staying as neutral as anyone in a noble house with a close affiliation with Princess Celestia can. I've been doing some thinking, and I decided that I was declaring my loyalty to Celestia over any noble house. Unfortunately, that includes ours, I can't make exceptions or they'll all think they can buy my loyalty." Twilight explained.

Her parents looked sad and more than a little disturbed.

"When did you get so skilled at politics?" her father asked.

"The princess taught me the basics." she said with a shrug. True, though it was a different version of the princess, and there was a significant amount more than the basics taught by her mentor in the subject.

She didn't think they really needed to know that though, they looked freaked out enough as it was.

"So, you wanted our blessing or something?" Night Light asked tiredly, his face portraying a need for alcohol in the near-future.

"Yes, I didn't want to just walk up and say 'oh hey, I decided I'd be pledging my allegiance to Celestia over you guys without telling you first.'" the corners of her mouth turned upwards in something that might have been a smile. "Yeah, that wouldn't be awkward at all, not that this isn't." she said.

"Well, you'll have to tell your brother, but we're okay with it. We're aren't happy, but we aren't going to try and stop you if you think it's necessary." Midnight Velvet said.

Twilight smiled in relief. "Thanks, that's a load off." she said, visibly sagging as tension left her. She may be good with politics, but she was not as good at handling disappointment from ponies she actually knew. They tried their best to enjoy the rest of their time together that day, despite the heavy mood of earlier.

After Twilight left, she went over to the Royal Guard's barracks to talk to her elder brother. She found Shining Armor sparring with another member of the guard. She waited in the background for him to finish, watching him and the other guard.

She noticed that Shining Armor's strength and speed were above-average, and his shields were stupidly powerful in comparison to the other unicorns spells, but his magical offense was relatively weak, even in comparison to the other unicorn's. However, his technique was a great deal better.

His opponent was slightly larger and stronger, and had a stronger magical offense with a weaker defense. She noticed that Shining Armor seemed to be winning, chipping away at his opponent. The other unicorn was unable to get past her brother's defenses, and so couldn't land a blow.

Her brother's weakness was that his offense was weak, if his opponent could break through his defenses, he would be all but defenseless since he'd take damage far more quickly than his opponent. The other unicorn's weakness was his weak defense, which left him open to attack. She was used to cataloging the weaknesses of fighters she saw sparring from the Swordsmare Avatar.

Once he won and the crowd of congratulators dispersed, she approached him. She felt rather like she was intruding on his life right now, but she'd prefer to tell him about her decision personally. It would be best to nip any potential misunderstandings in the bud.

"Nice moves." she commented.

"Thanks, I-" he turned to her, and did a double-take. "Twily? how long have you been watching?" he asked, surprised.

"Since about five minutes ago." she answered honestly. "Anyway, there's something I want to talk to you about." she said more seriously.

He noticed the change in her demeanor, and they went to his quarters. "So what's this about?" he asked.

"Well, I'm sure Mom and Dad told you about the nobles trying to get to the princess through me, to counter them, I've decided to officially declare my loyalty to the princess over any noble house, with the inclusion of ours." she explained.

He stared at her for a full 5 seconds, before asking "Have you thought this through?"

She nodded. "I've given it a lot of thought, and if I don't do this, it could just keep escalating until they decide to hold our parents hostage or something similar." Twilight responded.

"Wow, you have a really low opinion of the nobility." Shining Armor noted.

"A side-effect of their repeatedly attempting to bribe me. Anyway, I thought it best to tell you myself." Twilight responded. "So... are we good?" she asked.

Shining Armor thought it over for a minute. Then sighed. "Alright, if you think it's best, then go ahead." he said.

The reason that they were so hesitant, was that if she said she was loyal to Celestia over her noble house, she was going to have to spend less time with them, because that would compromise her position as being loyal to the princess over anypony else.

She had buried herself completely in her studies and only rarely come home in baseline, so it shouldn't be so bad. She was sure that she'd get used to it again.

[center]***The day before the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration***[/center]

She was in the library, reading and waiting for the princess to send the letter. She was starting to get worried, maybe the princess didn't really believe her when Twilight told her that her life was actually a game. Maybe she thought Twilight was unhinged and, had merely shown her a convincing illusion that she explained with a delusion and who was therefore not to be trusted with all of Equestria's safety. No, she shook her head, that was silly, the princess trusted her.

She didn't notice several hairs were coming out of place for no apparent reason as she went back and forth. Her theory for why it became increasingly messy when her mental state declined, even if it had been perfectly straight 10 minutes ago, was that her own ludicrous amounts of magic caused it to reflect her mental state. It was a similar principle to how Celestia and Luna's manes were permanently moving in a usually-nonexistent breeze.

She soon had her unfounded fears assuaged when Spike coughed up Celestia's letter. "A letter from the Princess? I wonder what it's for..." he cleared his throat. "It says, 'My dearest, most faithful student Twilight, I need you to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration happening in Ponyville this year.

I have another task for you as well, please try and make some friends. There's more to a young pony's life than studying and politics, and the town's full of friendly ponies.'"

He pulled out another slip of paper that was with the letter. "'PS: I've sent the checklist of preparations with the letter, you'll be staying the night in the town library and I'll take you and Spike back with me to Canterlot after the festivities.'" Spike added as he read the postscript.

'Main Quest. Oversee the Celebration. Check on each part of the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration and become acquainted with the other five element bearers.'

"I guess we should pack for an overnight stay then." Twilight said. She spelled a clone into existence. "Pack while I say goodbye to our family." she ordered it.

Her sister rolled her eyes and muttered, "I've got all your memories, I know what to do." before going to do so. That spell would leave her fairly drained, but it was well worth it to cut down on things to do. She'd let the clone take care of packing, while she took Spike to say goodbye to her parents, brother, and Cadance.

About half an hour and four teleports later, she was getting on the chariot, her clone popped itself as soon as it was done packing for their stay and loading up the chariot. She and Spike rode on it towards the familiar sight of Ponyville. "Aw, cheer up Twilight, we're staying in the library." Spike said.

Twilight was actually very excited to see her friends again after so long, and had been keeping her expression carefully neutral so as not to seem excited for no apparent reason.

"Oh, sorry Spike, it's just that I don't understand why she's having me do this. If she needed to have somepony check on the celebration, wouldn't a member of the guard be a better choice since they are pretty much universally regarded with respect, while most ponies outside of Canterlot won't have even heard about me?" she asked.

"I think you're selling yourself short a little bit on that last part, you're the student of Princess Celestia, you might not be a household name, but you are famous." Spike reassured her.

He put a claw on his chin in thought. "I guess it is kind of strange that she'd send you, but maybe that's why. Most ponies here won't care about you being her student, so you can make some real friends here." Spike rationalized.

"You were planning on trying to make some friends, right?" Spike asked, suspicious that she might try and rush through checking the preparations to avoid social contact as much as possible. She had essentially been doing so, staying in the library and studying, only coming out to buy groceries.

"Of course. It was a direct order from the princess. I have to at least [i]try[/i]." she answered. To this, Spike nodded, satisfied.

They got off the chariot once it had landed, thanked the pegasi Royal Guards, and turned to the chaotic, but homey, hamlet. Ponies of all ages were going all over town, busy getting ready for the celebration.

As per baseline, Pinkie was walking towards them.

"Right, I guess now's as good a time to start as any." she said, suddenly nervous as Pinkie approached. She hadn't seen any of them in decades from her point of view and they hadn't even met her yet from their perspective. What's more, she'd never really understood how Pinkie did what she did, who knew how it had reacted to the game?

"Ahem, hello, I'm Twilight Sparkle, what's your name?" Twilight asked, smiling nervously. She knew Pinkie's name of course, but there was no way she could have normally.

"I'm Pinkie Pie, your Stats are pretty high huh?" she suddenly gasped. "Oh! I've got to get everything ready!" Pinkie shot off much like baseline.

Once Twilight's brain restarted, she giggled, which turned into chuckles, which turned into full-blown laughter that sounded very slightly unhinged. "Well, that was different. Come on Spike, we have to check out the preparations." Twilight said, smiling widely.

Spike, more than a little freaked-out, nodded. Most ponies ignored what had just happened. Ponyville was a weird, weird place. That was nothing major.

They started with the food again, Twilight had calmed down to the point she was back to normal by the time they got there. She once again saw Applejack applebucking trees when she got there. "Good afternoon, my name is Twilight Sparkle, and I was sent here to check on the food for the celebration." Twilight said, handling the vigorous hoofshake much better this time, and bringing her hoof to a complete stop once Applejack let go.

"Well how do ya' do miss Twilight. I'm Applejack, a pleasure to make your acquaintance. We here at Sweetapple Acres sure do like making new friends." AJ said.

"Uh, right. About the food?" Twilight asked awkwardly.

"Of course, I'll get some samples right away." AJ said, before moving over to metal triangle and ringing it while yelling. "Soup's on, everypony!"

After the stampede of Applejack's relatives dropped Twilight and Spike at a table that was soon covered in apple related foods as AJ introduced her family.

"I'd say that they're already part of the family." AJ put her hoof on Twilight's shoulder as she said this.

"Well, we can't stay long, we have to check on everything else before nightfall." Twilight said.

"But you'll stay for brunch, right?" Applebloom asked, a kicked puppy expression on her face.

Twilight responded by picking up a slice of pie and saying, "Well, I guess 15 minutes won't hurt." the whole family cheered.

Twilight managed not to give herself a stomachache this time, and had a short conversation with the year-rounder family members here.

She was on her way a few minutes later than baseline, but she was okay with that.

When she reached the spot she'd been bowled over in during the baseline, she asked Spike. "Weather's next, right?"

He nodded. "There's supposed to be a pegasus pony named Rainbow Dash clearing the clouds." Spike looked up. Twilight did as well, making sure Spike wasn't in the way.

"Well, then this Rainbow Dash is slacking off for some reason." Twilight said, conjuring up a pile of pillows to block a certain prismatic pegasus from crashing into her.

"Thanks for the save, but I resent that!" Rainbow Dash said.

"Okay, so what were you doing then? My name's Twilight Sparkle by the way." Twilight said.

"Practicing for the Wonderbolts! I've always wanted to be one!" Rainbow Dash said.

Twilight sighed. "I hate to bust your bubble, but they'd never accept a pegasus who can't keep the sky clear over a small town for a single day." Twilight deadpanned.

"Hey, I could clear this sky in ten seconds flat if I wanted to!" RD said hotly.

"Alright." Twilight conjured up a stopwatch. "I'll time you. 1, 2, 3, go on 3, okay?" she asked.

"Fine with me." RD smirked, readying her wings.

"1...2...3!" Twilight called, starting the stopwatch at the same instant.

RD was off, tearing through the clouds.

She got back with milliseconds of finishing.

"10 seconds flat." RD said, smirking.

"Nope." Twilight responded.

"What?!" RD asked.

"9.97 seconds, you did better than 10 seconds flat." Twilight said, smiling.

"Why are you smiling like that? I won." RD asked, confused.

"Because you just cleared all the clouds like I wanted." Twilight said, still smiling.

RD paused, the laughed. "Heh, you got me. Nice one, we should hang out sometime." RD said, before flying away.

"That was amazing! She's like the you of pegasi!" Spike said.

"Basically. What's next on the list?" Twilight asked. She wondered how meeting Rarity would go since her hair was just fine this time.

"Decorations, a unicorn named Rarity, she'll probably be in the town hall putting them up right now." Spike said after checking the list.

"That's where we're going next then." Twilight said, putting Spike on her back. She walked over there with minimal incident.

"Beautiful...!" Spike breathed as they entered and got a good look at the decorations. Huh, a few touches she didn't remember here and there. Butterfly effect of the changes she'd made in the timeline probably.

"Yes, the decor is nice, and I thought your crush was Moondancer." Twilight responded, saying the second half quietly so Rarity couldn't hear.

"Well, I mean uh..." Spike stammered.

"Just don't let one find out about the other." Twilight said, smiling slightly as she approached Rarity.

"Hello there, the princess sent me to check on the decorations, but since they look great I guess there isn't really any need to stick around and get in your hair." Twilight said, knowing that the mention of the princess would make Rarity connect the dots to her being from Canterlot.

Rarity gasped, "You were sent by the princess? You're from Canterlot?" she asked.

"Yes, to both." Twilight responded.

"You have to tell me all about it, over some tea perhaps? I'm just about finished here." Rarity made a few more touches here and there, then dragged a willing Twilight over to her boutique.

They talked and Twilight shared a few stories she thought Rarity would appreciate before they left to check the last one on the list.

"Music, another pegasus called Fluttershy." Spike said.

"Does it say where she might be?" Twilight asked.

"Well, she lives on the outskirts of town." Spike said, after reading through that part of the checklist.

"I guess we should start there then." she said with a sigh at the vagueness of the directions.

She knew where it was, but she had to make a show of not-knowing. Which meant circling around the edge of town until she reached the spot Fluttershy was practicing with her birds.

After a half hour of searching, Twilight found the butter-colored pegasus. Longer than the first time, but Twilight had gained some time from Rarity's chunk of the day over baseline.

"Hi there." Twilight said, approaching and talking quietly enough not to disturb the birds this time.

"My name's Twilight, the music sounded great! Your name's Fluttershy, right?" Twilight asked.

Fluttershy nodded meekly. "Hey Spike, come over here a sec?" Twilight called over.

Spike came out of the bushes and started over. "Okay, but I don't think she's a very social pony, even by your standards." Spike said, only for Fluttershy to suddenly yell "A baby dragon!" startling the birds away.

"Oh, I've never met a baby dragon before. This is so amazing, I don't even know what to say!" Fluttershy said excitedly, well for her.

"Well, we have to go back to the library, but you two can talk on the way." Twilight said, putting Spike on her back.

"Okay, so what do you want to know?" Spike asked.

"Absolutely [b]everything[/b]!" Fluttershy said.

She had no idea how Spike managed to cram the entirety of his life story into the trip back to the library besides today. In either incidence. However, she did know that it was still aggravating this time, if less so.

"So, do you want to come inside? I have no idea if we have food here, but it's getting dark and we have to stay up or we'll miss the sunrise." Twilight said as the library came into view.

"Well, I do want to hear the rest of Spike's story, but I don't want to intrude." Fluttershy said hesitantly, her enthusiasm for learning about an animal she'd never encountered before warring with her natural shyness.

"Well, I don't mind, and Spike still needs to finish his story." Twilight reassured her shyest friend.

"Um, okay." Fluttershy said as they went inside. They were immediately assaulted by streamers and balloons as the lights came on revealing Pinkie's party.

"Hi, it's me Pinkie Pie, remember me? Isawyouwhenyoucameintotownandyouwerealllikehello, remember?" Pinkie asked speaking in her usual superfast speech when she was excited. "I threw this party just for you so you could make lots and lots of friends!" Pinkie said. "It should be easy with your high Charisma Stat!" she added, to the general confusion of the other ponies in the room.

'Main Quest Complete! +100 Exp/Bits. +5 skill points.'

She raised Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 53/1000, and Positive Magic to 64/1000.

'At 60/1000, you're on your way to the level of understanding required of an Archmage, which is 100/1000.'

"Thanks Pinkie, but why is the hot sauce at the punch table? Somepony might accidentally put it in their punch." Twilight asked, remembering what had happened the first time she went to this party.

"Huh, you know, I don't really know." Pinkie said, putting a hoof to her chin a rare serious moment, before smiling. "Oh well, it's not like it'll hurt anypony." Pinkie said.

"Yeah, Ah'm not so sure about-" Applejack cut off as Pinkie took a swig of the hot sauce straight from the bottle.

"Well never mind then." she deadpanned.

Twilight talked some more with the girls before the party ended about 15 minutes before the celebration was to begin. She had saved at her bed just before she left the library, and she was going to try reasoning with Luna first. Somehow she doubted having a thousand years of negative emotions ripped out of you was pleasant, no matter how it was done.

Besides, if she was irredeemable then the elements would likely have sealed Luna away again. If that didn't work, she could always go through with the elements restoring her, and if all else failed, she could try just beating the evil out of her, but that was a last resort.

Of course, there was always the chance Nightmare Moon would just blast her if she tried to explain, but she had to try. Luna was in there somewhere, and anything that hurt Nightmare Moon would hurt her as well.

'Chapter Progress: 1 quest complete. 0 stars found. 400 exp to next level.'


	9. Nightmar Moon

AN: Pinkie's just being Pinkie, breaking the fourth wall at will. I'm not paid anyway.

Twilight waited for the dramatic reveal that would happen right about... now. "And now without further ado, I give you princess Celestia!" the mayor announced, then the curtains were pulled back to reveal nopony there. There were gasps all over the room.  
"Well, that can't possibly be good." she commented. It was hard to freak out over somepony who didn't really want to hurt anypony, especially when she'd become acquainted with said pony.  
"Oooh, where'd she go? Is she hiding?" Pinkie asked cheerfully.  
Rarity looked inside the room behind the curtains, then came back out saying "She's not here!" This elicited another round of gasps.  
"Oh, she's good." Pinkie said, before screaming as purple smoke coalesced on the little platform above the crowd into a black alicorn in armor. As per baseline, Spike fainted.  
"Oh my beloved subjects, it's been so long since I've seen your precious, sun-loving, faces." Nightmare Moon said.  
"What did you do to Princess Celestia?!" Rainbow Dash asked, held back from attacking Nightmare Moon only by Applejack's hold on her tail.  
"Oh, I sealed her in her own celestial body like she did me, poetic justice and all that." Nightmare Moon said, a smirk on her face.  
"Nightmare Moon, I need to talk to you. You're making a mistake. Making the night eternal isn't going to make ponies like it, it's just going to make them resent it. Besides which-" Twilight ducked under a bolt of Nightmare Moon's magic. She didn't want this to come to a fight for personal reasons, namely that she didn't want to beat up a future friend.  
Besides, Nightmare Moon had 10,000 HP, she'd lose by attrition. She simply didn't have the damage-dealing ability for that kind of a fight.  
"Well, well, well, it appears some of you, at least, remember me and know why I'm here. However, I won't tolerate lectures from a pony who is obviously biased in favor of the day, being Celestia's student. She mentioned you while we fought." Nightmare Moon said.  
"I'm trying to help-" Twilight dodged another bolt.  
"Remember this day little ponies, for it was your last. From this moment forth, the night will last FOREVER!" Nightmare laughed evilly.  
"Seize her! She's the only one who knows how to free the princess!" the mayor ordered several of the royal guards stationed in town for the celebration, presumably they'd come with the princess. The guards launched themselves at Nightmare Moon, only for her to send them flying back with contemptuous ease.  
Twilight cast her clone spell and ordered it, "Keep her occupied while I help the guards." She healed the guards while her clone managed to deal some damage to Nightmare, until a stray attack caught her clone and she popped.  
"Well, that's enough of that nonsense." Nightmare Moon said, before dissolving into smoke and leaving in the direction of the Everfree forest.

'Main Quest. Stop Nightmare Moon. Find the elements of harmony, defeat Nightmare Moon, and restore daytime and Celestia.'

Twilight galloped back to the library, soon followed by the other five of the element bearers.  
She put Spike to bed, then pulled out the book about the Elements of Harmony, needing an excuse to know about where the elements were. "Right, the Elements are in the old castle." she said.  
"What are you talking about?" Rainbow Dash asked.  
"Y'all are the only one who seems to know what's going on." Applejack said as she and the other three girls stepped into view.  
"The elements of harmony are what stopped Nightmare Moon the first time. Unfortunately, they're last known location is the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters, located deep in the Everfree forest. We can assume she knows about their location as well.  
What's worse, I don't know what exactly they [b]do[/b]." This was true. The exact workings of the elements eluded her because the bearers, the one they were being used on, and the mental and emotional states of both parties had a massive effect on what they did in a specific situation.  
"However, we don't really stand a chance of winning a straight on fight, so the elements are our only chance of stopping her. Otherwise we're looking at mass extinction and eventually total wipe-out of all life on the planet." Twilight said.  
"But, how does that work? It's just going to be night out all the time." Rainbow Dash asked.  
"Plants make their own food, but they require sunlight to do this. Without sunlight, all the plants will die, then the herbivores, us, will starve to death without them, then the carnivores, then the omnivores and scavengers, and so on. The sun is the source of all non-magical energy on the planet, either directly, or indirectly. Without it, we only have a few years until all life is wiped out at best, though it will only take a few months for us ponies to be affected as food stores run low." she explained.  
A shocked, horrified silence answered her. "This is what I was trying to explain to Nightmare, but she's too bitter to listen to her counterpart's student, and has managed to delude herself into believing that she can force ponies to like the night before the negative effects kick in." Twilight said.  
"We have to stop her!" Rarity said.  
"Are you sure you want to come? We'll be facing obstacles from Nightmare as well as the Everfree Forest's natural dangers, from cockatrices to manticores." Twilight warned.  
"The whole world depends on it, and besides, we ain't letting any friend of ours go into that freaky place alone." Applejack said.  
A few minutes later, they entered the perimeter of the forest. "You know, other than being dark, it's actually not that bad here." Twilight said.  
"Does the dark scare you too?" Fluttershy asked.  
"Well, this big spider was in a basement I went down into when I was little, spiders and the dark have freaked me out ever since." Twilight answered.  
"You don't seem to bothered by it." Rarity noted.  
"Well, it's worse if I'm alone. I've learned to get past most emotions and approach situations logically, so that's some of it. We have more important things to worry about anyway." Twilight explained.  
The others shared a look.  
"Hey, what was that copy thing you did earlier against Nightmare Moon?" Rainbow Dash asked.  
"A spell of my own creation, it's rather limited because it drains as much magic as most ponies have in the original casting, and an additional 5% of the average every minute is deducted from the clone's magic. The remainder is divided equally between the original and the clone or clones. Unfortunately, I don't regain the magic the clone has when it pops, and the slightest injury, or even a hard knock will disperse them.  
However, I do get their memories and experiences, which means they're good for studying and scouting, but not so good for anything that might get them hurt like actual combat. It makes them useful for experiments with magic. I can perform experiments that could kill me without actually risking death, though I could do without remembering the sensation of being disintegrated." she muttered the last sentence too quietly for them to hear. Some of her experiments inevitably went wrong, and the ones she used her clones for were almost always sources of very unpleasant memories when they went badly.  
"Huh, has your magic recovered?" Rarity asked.  
"Well no, but it will only take about five more minutes." Her Regen regenerated about 55 MP per minute thanks to her Regenerator skill, and she needed to regain 570 after making a clone, so it would take a little longer than 10 minutes to recharge her magic to full, assuming she didn't use it for anything in the mean time. She'd already spent about five minutes not using magic, so she was at about three quarters of her full reserves.  
They were nearing the cliff that had collapsed the first time through, she had decided to let the events of tonight play out as per baseline, unless one of her friends was about to be hurt, then baseline could go to Tartarus. It was probably the only way to get them able to use the elements in order to use them to restore Luna. It didn't seem that talking was going to work, which left the elements as her next plan. One of the things she'd learned during her time as those other Avatars was that a good strategist always had a backup plan.  
"So, none of you have been in here before?" Twilight asked, noticing the purple smoke seep into the cliff side out of the corner of her eye.  
"Nope, this place ain't natural, folks say that it don't work the same as the rest of Equestria." Applejack said.  
"What does that mean?" Twilight asked nervously. She was nervous about something going wrong with this part of the timeline since it was the most dangerous part of the night, not the forest itself. Falling from this height could seriously hurt the others, her Resilience would nullify most if not all potential damage, but the others didn't have that luxury.  
"Nopony knows, because everypony who's ever gone in has never... come... out!" Rainbow Dash said, just as the cliff gave way.  
They all managed to get good enough footing to stop their downward slides, except Twilight. She was unlucky in that regard, the slope was almost smooth in her spot. She did manage to grab onto the edge, preventing a fall.  
Applejack let herself slide down to Twilight, grabbing a hold on Twilight's forehooves, but wasn't strong enough to pull Twilight up while fighting her own battle with gravity.  
"Applejack, what do I do?" she asked.  
"Let go." Applejack told her.  
"... Do you know how crazy that sounded?" Twilight asked.  
"I'm not crazy. I'm telling you the honest truth. Let go, and you'll be safe." Applejack said reassuringly.  
Twilight nodded, braced herself, and let go. She was immediately caught by her pegasi companions. She dropped slightly as Fluttershy struggled under her weight. "Sorry girls, I'm not used to carrying anything heavier than a bunny or two." Fluttershy said.  
Twilight watched Applejack use a series of ledges to get down from the cliff. That was one down, four to go. She noticed the smoke dart past them, and heard a muffled roar as Nightmare Moon enraged the manticore. Huh, so that was how that thorn got there.  
"Did anyone else hear that?" she asked, to put them on guard for the manticore. She was manipulating them, but that didn't mean she wanted them hurt if she could avoid it. Then she facehooved. "I just realized I could have teleported out of that situation." How had she not remembered that? Though she hadn't known the teleportation spell the first time. Still, she was intending to keep the timeline the same in this case so that they could use the the elements, even had she remembered, she wouldn't have done it.  
"Well, I suppose we all tend to forget these things when we're in mortal peril." Rarity said.  
"What did you hear?" Fluttershy asked nervously.  
"It sounded like something roaring in anger." Twilight answered.  
They proceeded forward warily, on the lookout for the creature that Twilight had heard. They were on guard when the manticore showed up. Fluttershy's face fell as she noticed the thorn in it's paw as well. "Well, I could teleport us past him, but not all that far considering there's six of us. It's an exponential increase with added distance and mass. He might just turn around and run us down." Twilight said, before Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity rushed the manticore. She gaped in disbelief, surely she hadn't caused ripples large enough to make them this much more reckless and willing to fight?  
Rarity got a few hits in, doing little damage to the Manticore before retreating. It's HP was now 480 out of 500. Applejack moved forward and tried to ride the manticore like in a rodeo as Fluttershy said "Wait." the first time.  
Applejack was flung off and casually said "All yours Dash." as she flew overhead.  
"I'm on it!" Rainbow said, flying at the manticore fast enough to leave a contrail of her namesake, as Fluttershy called "Wait!" louder and more urgently.  
Rainbow Dash flew around the manticore, making a small rainbow tornado before the manticore swatted her away with it's tail.  
"All together!" Twilight called out, only for Fluttershy to come between them and the manticore yelling "WAIT!" stopping anyone from making any more moves. She approached the manticore, which was initially hostile, but soon caved under Fluttershy's kindness and allowed her to remove the thorn.  
"How'd you know it wasn't going to hurt you?" Twilight asked.  
"I didn't, but I had faith that showing kindness would get through to him." Fluttershy responded once she was released from the manticore's licking her in gratitude.  
A few minutes later, they were headed towards the trees that had been given frightening faces and laced with a spell to instill terror in baseline.  
"My eyes could use a rest from all this muck." Rarity said.  
"Careful what you wish for, you just might get it." Twilight said, a moment before they entered the total darkness of that grove. "See?" she asked.  
"I didn't mean it literally." Rarity muttered.  
They kept bumping into each other, and then suddenly, the trees took on their frightening appearances, glowing a dull red as they started to move slowly. The fear spell was more powerful this time, so Nightmare Moon was stepping up her game, probably because of fighting her clone from earlier.  
Twilight's Will was high enough not to be affected, but with the exception of Pinkie, this was not true for the others.  
They screamed loudly, and only stopped when Pinkie started giggling and laughing.  
Twilight ducked as one of the branches suddenly accelerated, trying to snag her. It seemed the slowness was an act to make catching them easier. Pinkie was already at least somewhat aware of the game mechanics and the others were too scared to notice that she was almost to fast for the enchanted eyes of a pegasus to follow.  
"Pinkie, why are you laughing?!" she asked as she dodged another swipe. Odd that they weren't going for the others, but if Nightmare Moon thought she was enough of a threat to warrant her undivided attention, then that meant she'd mostly leave Twilight's friends alone. A good compromise.  
The others had stopped freaking out, and Twilight could only hope that the others were to preoccupied with Pinkie's song to realize that Twilight was far faster than any normal pony, even Rainbow Dash was slower than her while on the ground. It would raise questions she'd rather not answer.  
"Oh girls, don't you see?" Pinkie asked before starting to dance in place. "When I was a little filly and the sun was going down," she started to sing, as Twilight ducked under a swipe. "the darkness and the shadows, they'd always make me frown." she sang, bouncing around.  
"She isn't." Twilight deadpanned, still dodging with casual ease. Since Nightmare Moon was smoke bonded to these trees right now, Twilight didn't want to know what would happen to her 'enemy' if she did something to the trees.  
"She is." Rarity responded.  
"I'd hide under my pillow, from what I thought I saw, but granny pie said that wasn't the way to deal with fears at all." Pinkie continued to sing, and the movements of the trees became jerky. Huh, perhaps they could each channel a tiny amount of Harmony without the elements.  
"So what is?" Rainbow Dash asked.  
"She said, Pinkie you've got to stand up tall, learn to face your fears. You'll see that they can't hurt you, just laugh to make them disappear." Pinkie laughed the tree in the face and the scary face on it disappeared.  
They gaped at what they'd just seen.  
"Soooooo, giggle at the ghostly, guffaw at the grossly, crack up at the creepy, whoop it up with the weepy, snortle at the spooky, chortle at the cooky." Pinkie said, and they joined her in laughing at the trees, causing face after face to disappear.  
"Andthenthatbigmeanscaryfacewilltakeahikeandleaveyoualoneandifhethinkshecanscareyouhe'sgotanotherthingcomingandtheveryideaofsuchathingmakesyouwanna." Pinkie burst into a fit of giggles, unable to contain it any longer. "Laugh!" she called out as they all broke down laughing and the last few faces disappeared.  
Nightmare Moon's smoke left in the direction of the river. They followed as soon as their laughter had subsided to the point they weren't rolling around on the ground, still giggling until they reached the currently raging river. "How are going to cross this?" Pinkie asked.  
"Well, I could teleport us across-" Twilight cut off as a voice became audible.  
The sea serpent they had encountered in baseline was there, only this time, he'd had his mustache cut off on both sides.  
"Excuse me sir, but why are you crying?" Twilight asked, already knowing the answer, but asking anyway.  
"Well, I was just sitting here, minding my own buisness, when this tacky little cloud of purple smoke whooshed past me and tore half beloved mustache off, then it came back and took off the other half almost as an afterthought! Now I look simply horrid!" he exclaimed dramatically, splashing water on them, leaving them soaked. Twilight cast a few spells and dried them off.  
"That's it?" Rainbow Dash asked.  
"That's what all this fuss is about?" Applejack asked.  
"For someone who prides themself on their appearance, this is a big deal. I'm just guessing, but it's kind of like how you'd feel if somepony chopped down one of the trees on your orchard." Twilight said, not really guessing at all.  
"Of course it's a big deal. How can you be so insensitive?" Rarity asked, walking towards the sea serpent. "Such lovely luminescent scales, an expertly quaffed mane, a wonderful manicure, but they're ruined by losing your mustache." she continued.  
"It's like graffiti, it detracts from the whole picture." Twilight added.  
"It's true, I'm hideous!" the sea serpent wailed.  
"I cannot let such a crime against fabulosity go uncorrected!" Rarity said determinedly, she went over and pulled one of the sea serpent's scales off.  
"Ow, what was that for?" the sea serpent asked.  
Rarity used the scale to slice her own tail off and then her mane, before using her magic to replace the sea serpent's mustache with them.  
"Oh, my mustache! How wonderful!" the serpent said, overjoyed.  
"You look smashing." Rarity commented.  
"Oh Rarity, your beautiful tail and mane!" Twilight said mournfully.  
"Oh it's alright my dear. Short tails and manes are in this season, besides they'll grow back." Rarity said, looking a little dubiously at the remains of her tail.  
"The mustache would have too." Rainbow said in a stage whisper.  
Twilight smiled in amusement.  
They started to cross, when the serpent let them use him as a set of stepping stones again.  
They reached the last obstacle, the bridge. The fallen bridge to be exact.  
"Well, who wants to take Twi up on her offer to teleport us?" Applejack asked.  
"Or I could just grab the rope and tie the bridge back to the posts." Rainbow said, before flying down, grabbing the ropes and tying one to one of the posts, when the Shadowbolts showed up. As per baseline, the trio's offer was rejected in favor of Rainbow's friends.  
"Hey guys, sorry I took so long, but don't worry, I'd never leave my friends hanging." Rainbow said.  
They finally entered the ruined castle, to immediately find the pedestals with the five stone orbs with the elements besides magic.  
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy carefully lowered the elements down to the floor. "Huh, there's only 5." Pinkie said.  
"Where's the sixth?" Rainbow asked.  
"There are six elements, but only five are known. Honesty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, and Loyalty. I'm going to say the sixth is another virtue, anyway, the book said that according to legend a spark will reveal the final element." Twilight said.  
"What's that supposed to mean?" Applejack asked.  
"I'm not sure, but I'm going to try it. Stand back, I have no idea what could happen." Twilight warned.  
The others backed off to wait outside. Twilight hoped this worked this time.  
She frowned when it became obvious that they weren't going to reactivate after a magical infusion of a small amount, so she jammed 500 MP into them, or tried to, as Nightmare Moon appeared in her purple tornado at that moment.  
Twilight jumped into the vortex, and then they both reappeared in another room, Nightmare Moon chuckled as her prehensile mane held the five elements. However, she was not prepared to have a Beam spell to the face.  
"You're kidding, right?" Nightmare Moon asked as she watched a pony less than a fortieth of her age get ready to attack her. Her eyes looked older, but her stance and the force behind that attack was fairly impressive. "Evidently you're not kidding." Nightmare Moon said as she got ready for what would likely be a short fight.

'Chapter Progress: 0 quests completed. 0 stars found. 400 exp to next level.'

Weird, that never happened right before a fight before.

AN: Yes, a cliffhanger, I'm evil. This chapter was getting kind of long, and I couldn't find a good cutting-off point before this.


	10. Chapter 10Nightmare Moon : Duel

Twilight was significantly faster than Nightmare Moon, but had less HP and power behind her attacks. Therefore, she had to avoid getting hit as much as possible while hitting her opponent as often and hard as she could. It was a good thing that her fighting style centered around the former. Talking certainly wasn't going to work, but she really only had to incapacitate Nightmare Moon long enough to do her thing with the elements and let the girls get here so that they could use the elements to restore Luna.  
She used Fireball a dozen times in quick succession as a second blow against Nightmare Moon. It had that useful auto-target sub-directive that was augmented by her high Combat skill, which would be useful for making sure that her opponent was actually hit by them. Beam was fast, but only traveled in a straight line. Fireball was much slower, but could curve in it's path if necessary.  
Nightmare Moon tried to dodge, but was unprepared for their ability to adjust their trajectories to such a great degree. She took direct hits, but was still 9000+. Twilight needed to use a massive damage-dealing spell in case of fights like this in the future. She felt held back by the lack of spells designed with killing intent for the first time.  
She'd had trouble making a spell that was higher power, but not going to blow up the whole room, so she had failed to make one herself so far, but maybe an overpowered Beam...  
She dodged several Beams from Nightmare Moon, before a more powerful ray was fired, essentially just a continuous Beam. Twilight teleported behind Nightmare Moon and did a short continuous Beam. It was a bad move, that was stupidly draining.  
She regenerated almost at a rate of 1MP per second, but she wasn't without a limit. She dodged the flurries of attacks, still taking some damage, but not an overwhelming amount as she retaliated. She was still over 700 HP when Nightmare Moon dropped below 7000 HP.  
"Well, you're doing better than I expected, so I suppose I should take this seriously." Nightmare Moon said.

'Boss is now Taking Opponent Seriously. Slight reduction to attack power, large increase speed and defense.'

Well crud. She was dead if she couldn't hit Nightmare Moon, but Nightmare Moon could hit her. Getting an idea, Twilight switched to Pegasi magic momentarily to speed in close, then switched to Earth pony magic, smashed her hoof into Nightmare Moon as hard as her Str Stat would allow, then insta-grew a tree that smashed Nightmare Moon into the ceiling hard enough to crack it, dropping her to below 5000 HP.  
Her eyes widened, that combo had done roughly 2000 damage. She was making that a finishing move. Anyway, now that she was bound, Nightmare Moon wouldn't be able to stop her from activating the elements. Twilight hurried over to the elements and infused them with a large amount of magic, only to be blown back by Nightmare Moon. Oh right, she could teleport. The sparking between the elements started, then faded away, leaving the elements only half-activated.  
"Well, you certainly put up a good fight, I can understand why my sister made you her student. However, you were foolish to challenge me. You wouldn't have stood a chance had I gone all-out, and now your only real hope of defeating me is about to be crushed." Nightmare Moon crushed the elements with a single stomp.  
"Check that, was just crushed." Nightmare Moon said smirking  
Twilight got ready to try outdueling Nightmare Moon again, when her friends voices became audible. Right, now to prove her wrong.  
"You can't destroy the elements of harmony just like that, Nightmare Moon. Those were just their physical forms, their spirits are right here!" she called as her friends came up behind her, not asking questions about the signs of combat. The elements' shards began to float and gained a color, either the coat or mane of their bearer.  
"What!?" Nightmare cried out in surprise, and a hint of fear.  
"Applejack, who reassured my doubts, represents the spirit of honesty." Twilight said, causing the three orange shards to circle Applejack, who glanced at them curiously.  
"Fluttershy, who was more concerned with the health and safety of an animal she'd never met before than her own, represents the spirit of kindness." Twilight said, causing the three yellow shards to circle Fluttershy, who was a bit nervous about all this.  
"Pinkie Pie, who laughed danger in the face, represents the spirit of laughter." Twilight said, causing the three pink shards to circle Pinkie, who bounced excitedly.  
"Rarity, who gave a sorrowful serpent a meaningful gift, represents the spirit of generosity." the trio of purple shards encircled Rarity at Twilight's words, Rarity looked at them with a calm acceptance.  
"And Rainbow Dash, who refused to abandon her friends for her heart's desire, represents the spirit of loyalty." the trio of blue shards was circling Rainbow Dash before she was finished.  
"The spirits of these five ponies got us through every challenge that was thrown at us." Twilight explained.  
"The sixth element is still missing, the spark didn't work!" Nightmare Moon said, grasping at straws.  
"Wrong again, that wasn't the right spark earlier. The spark was the realization that the five of you..." Twilight turned to her friends. "...are my friends!" she said. A final orb appeared in a flash of light, and continued to glow. This one was engraved with a star. Twilight turned back to Nightmare Moon.  
"You see Nightmare Moon, when these elements are ignited by the spark, that resides in the heart of each and every one of us, it creates the sixth element. The element that represents friendship itself, the element of magic!" Twilight called, as the shards circling her friends joined together and formed their necklaces, while hers shed the stone and became her crown.  
She and her friends floated as the elements charged up and fired a rainbow at Nightmare Moon with the intent of removing the corruption.  
"Nooooo!" Nightmare Moon screamed. She tried to resist the elements, but between the infusion Twilight had given the elements to wake them up and the duel which had weakened her, she stood even less of a chance of it than the first time. She noticed that the elements registered as infinite damage.  
When the light from the element's faded, they found themselves on the ground. The others seemed to have slight headaches.

'+100 Exp/Bits. + 20 skill points.'

"Oh, my goodness!" Rarity called, upon discovering that the elements had been kind enough to restore her mane and tail.  
"Oh Rarity, it's lovely." Fluttershy said.  
"'It's'? You mean they're." Rarity said, confused.  
"No, I meant your necklace. It looks just like your cutie mark." Fluttershy replied.  
Rarity compared the two, then said. "So does yours!"  
Fluttershy compared hers as well, noticing that they were the same with a gasp.  
"Look at mine! Look at mine!" Pinkie said, bouncing over.  
"Aw yeah!" Rainbow seemed to like having a lightning bolt necklace.  
"It makes sense, we're the spirits of the elements, and our cutie marks, which represent our special talents, are closely tied to our souls. So they took form as our cutie marks." Twilight said.  
"Gee Twilight, I thought you were spouting a lot of hooey, but you were right, we really do represent the elements of friendship." Applejack said.  
"Indeed you do." Celestia said, appearing in a ball of light as the sun rose.  
"Princess Celestia!" Twilight said, going over and nuzzling her mentor.  
"Twilight Sparkle, I knew you could stop Nightmare Moon, and free my little sister from her corruption, because you had the magic inside to do so, and now you have friends to help you unleash it. Now I can only hope that she will accept friendship as well." Celestia said.  
Luna had reverted to an alicorn of roughly the size of a normal pony. She became nervous as her elder sister approached.  
"Luna, I'm sorry I didn't see how you felt, but we were meant to rule together little sister. Will you accept my friendship?" Celestia asked.  
Luna was silent for a few seconds that passed anxiously for everypony but Twilight. Pinkie actually fell over.  
"I'm so sorry! I missed you so much big sister!" Luna said, crying. Twilight hadn't had the normal Luna to compare it to before, but Luna's voice was quite a bit higher in this state. She seemed to be younger or something along those lines, perhaps Luna was actually made younger by the elements as a side effect, and had used an age spell to turn herself back to normal. That, or her current state was a side effect that wore off later once Luna had recovered from having a chunk of her magic stripped.  
"I missed you too." Celestia said, also tearing up.  
Pinkie started to bawl her eyes out, then stopped abruptly and asked. "Hey, you know what this calls for?" They were suddenly back in town. "A party!" she yelled, confetti sprayed out of nowhere as Celestia and Luna rode through town on a chariot. Some pegasi foals put a wreath of flowers around Luna's neck. Twilight was reunited with Spike and he was given a summarized version of what transpired.

'Quest Complete! +200 Exp/Bits. +10 skill points.'

"Some day I'll understand how you do that." Twilight told Pinkie, glancing around their surroundings. "Not today though."  
"Sure, your Int is more than three times the average, so you understand a lot of stuff the rest of us don't." Pinkie said smiling.  
"Wait, are you saying [i]you[/i] don't understand how you do this stuff?" Twilight asked, flabbergasted. She was sure that Pinkie had at least some idea of how she did what she did before now.  
Celestia approached the group as the others were chuckling at her expression.  
"Well, are you ready to go?" Celestia asked.  
"To be honest, no. I have friends now, and I don't want to leave them." Twilight responded.  
"Well, in that case, I decree that the unicorn Twilight Sparkle will henceforth study the magic of friendship. She will report her findings to me, from her new home in Ponyville!" Celestia said. There was cheering at the announcement.  
"Thank you, I'll study harder than ever." Twilight smiled gratefully.  
"Before we leave, we should talk." Celestia suggested.  
"Right, the library should work." Twilight said, her smile replaced by a more neutral, buisness-like, expression and tone.  
[center]*** 25 minutes later ***[/center]  
"So, you knew about Nightmare Moon beforehoof?" Luna asked.  
"Yes, an advantage of living through your life once before." Twilight answered. Luna was an alicorn with centuries of experience, Twilight had explained her situation to Luna at Celestia's behest. She had pointed out that her sister could be a valuable adviser like Celestia herself. Not in so many words, but that was what it boiled down to.  
"Well, I'm curious as to how you moved that quickly at the end, hit so hard, and then made that tree grow." Luna said, taking the fact that their lives were a game fairly well since her sister and one of her saviors was already dealing with it.  
"Well, I explained the other Avatars right? I spent a few decades as the others and figured out how to use the other types of pony magic. The difference between my magic and alicorn magic is that I can only use one of the different types at a time."  
"Really... interesting, can you teach that to others?" Luna asked, a look that hinted at a plan.  
"Well, yes. However it's very hard to learn. It was hard making it possible, I'm still working on simple and it's slow going." Twilight responded.  
"Hm, well there goes that idea for the moment. By the way, what happens when your skills hit 1000?" Luna asked.  
Twilight considered it. "Well, I haven't even gotten a tenth of the way there, but I think that would mean nopony could defeat me in that. If I got Blade-wielding to 1000/1000, I'd probably be able to use anything with an edge, which is to say just about everything, as a weapon with enough skill to overcome a master with a legendary sword." Twilight hypothesized.  
"Hm, well, we could see if the points you got from stopping me make a noticeable improvement." Luna suggested.  
Twilight nodded, raising Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 61/1000, and Positive Magic to 70/100. For Combat,

'At 60/1000 or more, you are more skilled than anypony in the royal guard, and nearly all in the mercenary field.'

For Resilience,

'At 60 or more, falling from the third story of a building won't hurt you.'

For Blade-wielding,

'At 60 or more, you can out-duel even a skilled swordsman with an inferior blade.'

For Positive Magic,

'At 70 or more, you are more than two-thirds of the way to the level of understanding required of an Archmage.'

"Hm, since you raised Combat, Resilience and Blade-wielding by more than 10%, they should have improved by more than 10%. Frankly, I don't like the idea of fighting you even more skilled than before." Luna said, analyzing the situation.  
"I kind of only won because of the elements." Twilight said.  
"Perhaps, but you certainly put up an impressive fight before. More than 10% improved..." Luna trailed off, the conclusion of her sentence self-explanatory. Twilight might be able to beat Nightmare Moon herself now.  
"Huh, now I'm tempted to go through that again just to see if I could, but I'm not going to. I didn't exactly enjoy beating up a future friend." Twilight said.  
"Anyway, I'll be using my foreknowledge to make the events that I'll be going through run more smoothly, but I can't change anything too much, or I'll mess up the timeline to the point where my foreknowledge isn't of any use." Twilight explained.  
"That makes sense." the royal sisters said at the same time.  
"You're not going to do the twins thing all the time are you? Because not only would that not make sense since you're not twins, but it's creepy no matter what." Twilight said, a little weirded out.  
"No, that was a freak accident." Celestia said.  
"Alright, is there anything else you two think we should go over?" Twilight asked  
They shook their heads, and left a few minutes later. Twilight helped Spike organize the books. The library hadn't had a librarian in three years before she arrived. She was finally back in Ponyville to stay, and the ticket incident would be in a week. She had a plan for that though. All in all, today had gone very well. She yawned suddenly. Oh yeah, she hadn't slept in over 24 hours. It could wait until the book sorting was done though.

'1 quest completed. 0 stars found. 100 exp to next level.'

AN: Sorry for the wait on this half, but I got it out within a couple days, right? The next chapter will be Ponyville's version of what I did for the first few chapters.


	11. Time To Explore

Twilight had a busy week before the gala tickets arrived. She was spending time with her friends of course, but she was also looking for new side quests and stars. She hadn't been taking the time to go looking for stars before because she'd been on a schedule to meet up with all her friends and get to know them better before Nightmare Moon arrived, but now she had free time.  
She focused on stars first, looking all over town with as much thoroughness as in Canterlot, having a look along their route to the royal sisters' castle, and in the castle itself.  
Twilight found a library in the castle, which was a great find in and of itself, and she found a whomping [b]ten[/b] stars throughout the search.

'Str 61, Int 62, Agi 61, Con 62, Will 50, Regen 61, Wis 49, Chr 51, Lck 49. HP 1060, Shd 50, MP 1247.'

She raised Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding to 76/1000. and Positive Magic to 85/1000. For Combat,

'At 70 or more, you are more skilled than anypony who doesn't have natural talent and a great deal of training.'

For Resilience,

'At 70 or more, falling from the fourth story of a buliding won't hurt you.'

For Blade-wielding,

'At 70 or more, you can out-duel a master if your sword is significantly better.'

For Positive Magic,

'At 80 or more, you're more than three-quarters of the way to the level of understanding required of an Archmage.'

She now regenerated at a rate of more than 1 HP/MP per second, and was roughly one-fifth stronger, smarter, and faster. She tested it out on a problem she'd had trouble with before, and solved it easily this time.  
Then she moved on to quests. She found a large number of yardwork quests, and a few extermination quests. She did four landscaping quests, and finally reached level 10.

'Str 62, Int 65, Agi 62, Will 50, Regen 62, Wis 49, Chr 50, Lck 49. HP 1070, Shd 50, MP 1287.'

As expected, a fair number of skills were unlocked when she reached level 10. Her Hints had said as much.

'Physically Tough. 10% reduction to damage from physical attacks. This is before the reduction from Resilience. 0/1.  
Spiritually Tough. 10% reduction to damage from magical attacks. This is before reduction from Resilience. 0/1.  
Drain. A portion of the damage you deal restores the damage dealt to you, 1% for each point invested. 0/10.  
Shield Slicer. You can break through shields with a bladed object. Cost is proportional to strength of shield in relation to your attack. 0/1.  
Invincible Shield. You can project a shield that is completely unbreakable for 100 MP, however, it will disappear after 10 seconds. 0/1.  
Caster. You can cast two different spells in the same instant, or the same spell twice in one instant. 0/1.  
Attack Attacker. You can use this once every day to cut the damage of one enemy in half. 0/1.  
Mob Crusher. You gain a 10% boost to your abilities if you are facing more than three enemies at once. 0/1.  
Resilient. Automatic subtraction of 10 damage from incoming attacks after reduction by Resilience. 0/1.  
Magician. Automatic addition of 10 damage to spells of the Positive Magic type. 01.  
Skilled Combatant. You are able to see a technique in a fight once and imitate it, if not perfectly. Though seeing the technique performed repeatedly makes it possible to copy it flawlessly. Adding points improves your ability to replicate the technique. 0/10.  
Swordsman. You can adjust your style to fit the specific blade you're wielding. Invest points to reduce the inefficiencies that crop up. 0/10.  
HP Boost 1. + 10 HP. Note that you can't get a higher-numbered boost before a lower numbered one. 0/1.  
HP Boost 2. + 25 HP. 0/1.  
HP Boost 3. + 50 HP. 0/1.  
HP Boost 4. +100 HP. 0/1.  
HP Boost 5. +250 HP. 0/1.  
MP Boost 1. +10 MP. Note that you can't get a higher-numbered boost before a lower numbered one. 0/1.  
MP Boost 2. +25 MP. 0/1.  
MP Boost 3. +50 MP. 0/1.  
MP Boost 4. +100 MP. 0/1.  
MP Boost 5. +250 MP. 0/1.'

That added up to 49 skill points to get all these new skills. She'd gotten 14 from the four quests and leveling up, so that left 35. Luckily, she had over a dozen quests left to do. 10 more yardwork quests, and 8 exterminations. That should be 44 skill points, more than enough.  
She's written a letter to the princess asking if she could study negative magic. She'd waited because she wasn't sure how her mentor would respond. The princess had agreed with some reluctance, and sent her a few books. She wouldn't let Twilight access the higher level stuff right now. She'd dump the extra 9 skill points into Negative Magic to help facilitate the new area of study.  
Once she'd finished the yardwork quests, her reputation had risen a fair amount and caused a new quest to appear. It was already a good chunk higher from helping stop Nightmare Moon, and the interaction between the town's reputation and the national reputation had raised it by quite a bit as well before she even got there.  
Her questing was raising it a fair amount more, and unlocked four more quests in the yardwork line and two more exterminations.  
She soon had all the yardwork quests finished, and moved on to the exterminations, which ranged from Spiders, to Rats, to a new enemy, Wasps, which awarded 7 Exp/ Bits for defeating them.

'Wasps. A particularly nasty species of wasp that is like the killer bee of wasps. They have proven difficult to eradicate.'

She got 25 Exp/Bits and 2 skill points from each of the eighteen yardwork quests, and 50 Exp/Bits and 3 skill points each from the 10 exterminations. That totaled at 950 Exp/ Bits and 66 Skill points. She'd also gained 400 exp from the monster-slaying involved in the exterminations, totaling at 1350 Exp. This caused her to reach level 11 with 750 exp necessary to level up.

'Str 62, Int 65, Agi 64, Con 64, Will 50, Regen 64, Wis 49, Chr 51, Lck 49. HP 1515, Shd 50, MP 1732.'

Of course the game had waited to give her these boosts until [i]after[/i] she had fought freaking [b]Nightmare Moon[/b]. Sometimes she really didn't like the thing or its sense of humor.  
Anyway, she'd maxed out her new skills, and poured 30 of her 33 remaining points into Negative Magic.

'At 30 or more, you understand Negative Magic better than most since almost no one studies it, but you don't hold a candle to Luna or Sombra. Heck, you don't hold an unlit match to either of them.'

Sombra? Who was Sombra? She'd have to look into him. That description was a bit insulting, but she supposed that she really should have expected it since she was still below 50 in that skill. She'd also gotten a new skill out of the bargain.

'Non-corrosive. Reduces the corruptive effects of negative magic by 10%. 0/1.'

After grabbing that skill, she put the remaining two points into Negative Magic, raising it to 32/1000. After that, she spent the rest of the first week hanging around her 'new' friends and using a clone to study the negative side of magic. At this point, they lasted 153 minutes if she made just one, so she could leave one to study the other branch of magic while she spent time with her friends.  
What they did varied from a picninc, one of Pinkie's parties, helping Applejack out at the farm, helping Fluttershy with the animals, letting Rarity dress them up, and reading in the library. Twilight gave Rainbow Dash a few books on aeronautics that ended up improving her flight a bit. She'd apparently always done it by practice and what felt right.  
Applejack had been impressed by Twilight's strength, even though Twilight had said she could switch between the three types of pony magic at will. Though she left out the part about not being able to use more than one at a time.  
Pinkie soon noticed that Twilight had a strong stomach thanks to her high Con, and got her to test all sorts of recipes. More through her exuberance than any particular desire to try the rather bizarre concoctions Pinkie created on Twilight's part, even with her high Con, her stomach could only handle so much, and her tongue was less than pleased at some of the more spectacular failures.  
Twilight would put up with being made to wear dozens of different outfits long after even Fluttershy had quietly asked to be excused, so she got along well with Rarity, and they talked in between Rarity switching out portions of her living ponyquin's outfit.  
Twilight was used to Fluttershy's shyness, and knew when to pull back while interacting with her less-than assertive friend.  
Rainbow Dash was quite grateful to have her technique improved, as it would only heighten her chances of making it into the Wonderbolts. Thus, Twilight had gone up a notch in Rainbow's opinion. She had checked the rep. bar and it showed a marked increase and everything.  
Pinkie was just friendly with everypony, so she didn't get along with her much better than the first time because they'd gotten along very well after the first few bumps in the road.  
Twilight was also making some excellent progress in her studies. She'd soon be through the books the princess had sent her.  
A thought occurred to her, and she visited the main menu, and discovered that she'd unlocked some more Avatars.

'Lunar Equestria Twilight. This version is from an alternate Equestria where Celestia became Tyrant Sun, and was sealed away by her sister. This is essentially just Equestria with Luna in charge for her sister's 1000 year absence. The main difference is that negative magic is studied enough to rival positive magic. Unlocked by going one-on-one with Nightmare Moon and having a Negative Magic skill level of 30 or more.'

Hm, that would probably get her a [b]lot[/b] more material to study in dark magic, but it would sort of be going behind the princess' back.

'Nightmare Twilight. This version was corrupted by Nightmare Moon after the darker incarnation of Princess Luna saw her potential. Unlocked by going one-on-one with Nightmare Moon, using the Elements of Harmony, and having a Negative Magic skill level of 30 or more.  
Negative Mage Twilight. This version is set in the time before the windigo incident taught the tribes the value of friendship, and during a war between the unicorns and the pegasi. She is a user of negative magic who is quite famous on both sides for her combat ability. Unlocked by having Combat and Negative Magic skill levels of 30 or more.  
Magical Theorist Twilight. This version is from an alternate Equestria where Luna was never sent to the moon, and Celestia had no reason to send her student to Ponyville. Twilight grew up in Canterlot, and took the magical world by storm at the age of twelve. Unlocked by having a Positive Magic skill level of 50 or more.  
What The Heck Is She Twilight. This version doesn't get injured from anything short of falling off a skyscraper, heals the loss of entire limbs in less than a minute, and is stupidly skilled in combat. This is necessary, because she's from a version of Equestria that is being ravaged by invaders from other nations. Unlocked by having a Resilience skill of 50 or more, having a Regen of 50 or more, and having a Combat skill of 50 or more.'

Well, Magical Theorist sounded interesting at least. She decided to do Lunar Equestria then Magical Theorist, that way she'd get a solid base in dark magic from Luna, a master of negative magic, and an even greater understanding of theory from the Magical Theorist Avatar.  
She felt a bit guilty that she was going to go behind her mentor's back, but an alternate version of her sister was probably as good authority on teaching dark magic as she was ever going to find. She started Lunar Equestria Twilight, but got an alert saying the game was updatable. Once she had, a notice popped up.

'Bug preventing clones from being affected by Resilience skill fixed.'

Her right eye twitched slightly. That was due to a bug the whole time?! Oh, she wanted to blow something up right now. Stupid game!  
She mentally ranted for a few minutes, then took a deep breath and entered the world of one of her new Avatars. She soon found that this Avatar's world was significantly different from her baseline. Nightclubs and similar nocturnal activities were very popular for starters. There were also a very high number of batponies relative to her Equestria. This was probably an effect of Luna's influence.  
She was quite impressed at the new book selection. There were several dozen tomes on dark magic available at the public library. Nothing too dangerous, but certainly dark magic. She was able to learn a great deal about dark magic before even actually meeting this Avatar's version of Luna.  
Her personality and body in this Avatar was almost identical to baseline, except for the fact that she had a small amount of insomnia. She was glad, it was weird having her personality change when she switched Avatars. Though not being able to sleep until eleven or so took some getting used to.  
She became Luna's student after hatching this world's Spike with relative ease. It was only about half her MP at this point. She explained her situation to this Luna, as she couldn't come up with another way to explain knowing as much about magic as she did. She managed to convince the less-accepting alicorn princess with an amount of knowledge that a supposed six-year-old wouldn't be able to acquire all of. She could only assume that Luna had been so accepting in the other timeline because her sister and one of her saviors were the ones who had told her. That, or this Luna was significantly different from the other Luna due to having sealed her sister and spent a thousand years alone for all intents and purposes instead of the other way around. Maybe some of both.  
She learned a great deal about negative magic and a thing or two positive magic. Thanks to Luna being in charge instead of Celestia, magic had moved in a different direction in several areas. This meant she had several areas to expand her knowledge in, and returned the favor by teaching her mentor the things that had been discovered during her solar counterpart's thousand years. They came up with some completely new material together.  
Near the end of her tenure in this Avatar, she discovered a way to use positive and negative magic together to make a far more potent form of it. Come to think of it, this seemed similar to alicorn magic. Celestia and Luna used mostly positive and negative magic respectively, but there was a hint of the other type present in their magic.  
When she switched to Magical Theorist, she was surprised to find that this Avatar had a bit of a crush on [b]both[/b] her mentors. She was able to keep it under control though, and learning how to do this helped her learn to control all of her emotions better. This proved useful, as the nobles were put off by the sheer lack of even a hint of sentimentality she could portray.  
Twilight did indeed take the magical world by storm at twelve, though this was to be expected of the joint-student of Celestia and Luna. She had once again hatched Spike and become their student as a result. She had explained her situation to them just after.  
She found a bunch of new books for a similar reason as the previous Avatar. She was soon looked upon as being on the level of an expert. She could honestly say that she was quite happy with this Avatar. She had an excuse to 'make discoveries' about magic from other timelines. This caused more discoveries to be made by her peers who built on what she showed them, she made new discoveries from theirs, in a cycle that fed on itself, continually accelerating.  
Before she realized it, she was in her thirties, and had learned an immense amount about magic, more than several of her Avatars combined. She kept it going until the age of sixty-five. Then her parents died.  
Her father had passed in his sleep. and her mother had followed a month later. Her mind had essentially shut down for a week. She knew she could see them again, logically, but emotionally she was less than convinced. She stayed for a couple years after, until she was sure she wouldn't break down crying when she saw them again or act strange when asked about them. Then she left that Avatar's world, and returned to Enhanced.  
Now then, she was going through the ticket incident tomorrow, but she'd already made preparations for that. Despite her efforts, Spike noticed that she acted a bit differently. She didn't really move differently, since her Regen had slowed her aging process a great deal after 21, so she was only biologically thirty-five when she left, but she responded to things differently, and her speech was a little different.  
He hadn't confronted her about it, but she could tell he was concerned. She hadn't told him about the game, and didn't intend to. Hopefully, he'd be too distracted by tomorrow's events to question her.  
Oh, she really ought to check the other Avatars' worlds for stars. She should do that now actually. She had a look in each of the worlds she'd previously visited, and found 15 stars total, apparently Enhanced was relatively rich in stars.

'Str 67, Int 80, Agi 79, Con 79, Will 65, Regen 79, Wis 64, Chr 66, Lck 64. HP 1815, Shd 50, MP 2077.'

She raised Combat, Resilience, Blade-wielding, and Negative Magic to 85/1000, and Positive Magic to 94/1000.  
For Combat,

'At 80 or more, you can take out a medium-sized group of skilled opponents.'

For Resilience,

'At 80 or more, falling from the fifth story of a building won't hurt you.'

For Blade-wielding,

'At 80 or more, you can out-duel a master if you have a better sword.'

For Negative Magic,

'At 80 or more, you have an impressive understanding of negative magic, but still less than Luna.'

For Positive Magic,

'At 90 or more, you understand magic almost at the level required of an Archmage.'

Right, now to get a good's night sleep. Tomorrow would be hectic.

'Chapter Progress: 25 stars found. 28 quests completed. 750 exp to next level.'


	12. Gala Tickets

Twilight got up, and went through her day as per baseline up to the point when the letter arrived. Her plan was to make arrangements with the princess and the girls to take care of their reasons for visiting the gala. Hopefully she could take care of the problems that would spring up from the lack of enough tickets for everypony without being chased by a crazed mob this time.  
"What's that?" Applejack asked as the letter floated down.  
"That's how the princess sends me letters, and vice versa." Twilight explained.  
Spike opened the letter, skimmed it, and then read the important part. "Princess Celestia cordially invites you to the Grand Galloping Gala, plus one other." he said, pulling out two tickets.  
"The Grand Galloping Gala!" Applejack cried.  
"I take it you're interested in going." Twilight deadpanned.

'Main Quest. Gala Tickets. Resolve the conflict arising from the relatively low number of gala tickets.'

She thought so.  
"Am Ah? Ah'm not interested in the dancing and what not, but Ah could sell a whole lot of our baked goods at that dance. With that kind of money, we could fix up a lot of stuff around here. We could fix up the plow, the barn's roof, and Granny's hip!" Applejack said, a dreamy look on her face.  
"Well, Spike's said he doesn't want to go to girly things like this before, but I don't think you-" Twilight was interrupted by Rainbow Dash's arrival.  
"Did you say Grand Galloping Gala?" Rainbow Dash asked.  
"Yes. You want to go to?" Twilight asked, knowing the answer already.  
"Yeah, but only because the Wonderbolts will be there to perform! I can see it now. They'll be in the middle of their routine, and I'll dazzle them with my moves. They'll make me a Wonderbolt on the spot!" Rainbow Dash said.  
"Actually that's not-" Twilight was interrupted again.  
"Oh, you've got to let me come. Joining the Wonderbolts has been my dream since I was like four!" Rainbow Dash pleaded.  
"Hold on a minute. Ah asked Twilight for the extra ticket first!" Applejack said.  
"That doesn't mean you own it!" Rainbow Dash responded.  
"Ah asked you to help me with the farmwork earlier, and you said you were to busy, what where you busy doin if you were here the whole time?" Applejack asked.  
"I was busy napping." Rainbow gestured to where a blanket and pillow were lying on a tree branch. "Your trees are surprisingly comfortable, but I'm still getting that ticket!" Rainbow said.  
They stared each other down as they started to argue over who had the better reason for going. "Hoofwrestle for it!" Applejack finally said. They put their hooves out, and started to try to overpower each other.  
"Girls? Hello? Those reasons aren't going to..." Twilight trailed off as she noticed they were too focused on their argument/contest to listen to her. Well so much for that idea, she was [b]so[/b] going to be chased by a mob today.  
Without any better options, she quietly told Spike, "Let's go get some food while they argue, I'm starved."  
"What about them?" Spike asked.  
"They're too busy arguing to listen to me, so I might as well get some lunch since I have more trouble thinking on an empty stomach." Twilight said.  
Twilight left and was on her way to the nearest restaurant, but somehow or other, she ran into Pinkie again. It made no sense, she was sure that she was out of the way one second, but the next, she was on her flank after having walked right into her pink friend.  
"Gah! Bats on my face! Wait, these aren't bats. They're tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala!" Pinkie had just gone through what her reaction had been in baseline. Great, it seemed that the universe, that is, the game, was determined to make her go through this fiasco again.  
"Uh, Pinkie, I-" Twilight was cut off by Pinkie's loud exclamations of gratitude.  
"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you Twilight! The Grand Galloping Gala is the biggest party in all of Canterlot! It'll be amazing to get to go!" Pinkie thanked her. Rarity arrived just as Pinkie finished her song as in baseline.  
"Twilight, are those tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala?" Rarity asked.  
"Yes, but-" Twilight was cut off by Pinkie.  
"Yeah, Twilight's taking me to the Gala." Pinkie said excitedly.  
Rarity gasped. "Twilight! How could you invite Pinkie Pie to such a prestigious event and not me? All of Canterlot's nobility will be there, including Princess Celestia, and presumably Princess Luna. I can see it now, my dresses will so dazzle those in attendance, that I'll be granted an audience with Princess Celestia herself. She'll be so pleased that she'll introduce me to her nephew. We'll end up dating and getting married." Rarity had little stars and hearts intermingling in her eyes by the end of her speech.  
Twilight forcefully kept any laughter from escaping her, though the picture of Blueblood's expression at the thought of marrying a commoner was amusing, she didn't want to crush her friend's dreams, she wanted to let Rarity down gently. She briefly wondered if she was playing Creator momentarily, but dismissed it. She wasn't being all that manipulative.  
"Actually, I haven't decided to give Pinkie the ticket." Twilight told them. "And you've met the princesses before." she added more quietly.  
"You haven't?" Rarity and Pinkie asked at the same time, with expressions that were total opposites of each other. Rarity's was joyful, Pinkie's was aghast.  
"No, in fact- where'd the tickets go?" Twilight asked, being almost certain that that Angel Bunny had taken them to Fluttershy again.  
"Oh Angel, these are perfect!" Fluttershy said from a few feet away. ...And there was the confirmation. She really should have expected that to happen as soon as Rarity showed up.  
"You too? So why do you want to go?" Twilight asked, slightly annoyed.  
"Well, no not exactly, I'm only interested in the Royal Gardens. The flowers are supposed to smell wonderful, be of a huge variety, [i]and[/i] number. They'll only all be in bloom on the night of the gala. The fauna's supposed to be even more amazing! There's loons and toucans, and bitterns oh my! Hummingbirds that can hum with their vocal chords too, and buzzards that can really buzz! And redjays, and bluejays, and greenjays, and pink jays, and pink flamingoes!" Fluttershy finished, now hovering and hugging Angel Bunny.  
"That sounds beautiful Fluttershy, but-" Twilight was interrupted by Rainbow Dash.  
"Wait just a darn minute!" the chromatic pegasus called from a nearby rooftop.  
"Ah, I was wondering when you'd stop stalking me and switch to regular old following me." Twilight said nonchalantly. Time to have some fun.  
"I wasn't stalking you!" Rainbow responded hotly.  
"Were you following me around and watching me, while you thought I didn't know?" Twilight asked.  
"... Yes. How long did you know?" Rainbow asked, a little freaked-out.  
"Since you started." Twilight said smiling in a carefree manner, just to freak them out a little more. It turned out that her Stats affected her situational awareness as well.  
"That's really creepy. Anyway, I couldn't risk a goody-four shoes like you giving that ticket to just anypony." Rainbow justified.  
"Wait just another minute!" Applejack said walking over.  
"Huh, I thought you'd come out as soon as Rainbow did, since you were following her, presumably to try to keep her from trying to bribe me for the ticket." Twilight said.  
"You knew?" Applejack asked.  
"Yes, I knew since you started. I know lots of things." Twilight responded, she'd had to go through today a few times because she'd ended up chased by that mob repeatedly, she was going to avoid that this time!  
"Well, anyway, I'm still not letting her try any funny business." Applejack declared. "Still trying to take my ticket." she muttered sourly.  
The others joined in, and started arguing with each other over who got the ticket. Huh, she hadn't noticed the first time, but Fluttershy actually looked angry. That was a rare sight.  
She took a deep breath, and yelled "Quiet!" which shut up everybody but Pinkie, who promptly quieted down once she realized that nopony else was talking.  
"Girls, there's no use in arguing. This is my decision, and I'll make it, so no random favors to try and bribe me into giving you the ticket. If you do try that, I'll take the favors, but give you no special consideration." she announced, quite enjoying the looks on their faces.  
"That's despicable!" Applejack said.  
"And trying to bribe somepony isn't?" Twilight deadpanned. The girls had the grace to look ashamed as the thought had already crossed their minds.  
"Anyway, I can't think straight with all this noise, and I still haven't gotten to eat! Now go on, shoo! Come to the library at sunset!" she waved them away.  
The others left, grumbling.  
"Don't worry, I'll figure this out!" Twilight called after them. Well, she already had a plan, so that might not count as figuring it out.  
"So, now what?" Spike asked.  
"Well, I write to the princess and see if she can arrange things so everypony's happy. I'm only going to the Gala because the Princess wants me to, otherwise I wouldn't go if I had anything, and I mean [i]anything[/i] else to do." Twilght said.  
"Is it that bad?" Spike asked.  
"Remember that one formal dance we had to go to? Much less fun than that." Twilight said.  
"Wow, I didn't think that was even possible." Spike said as they started walking back to the library, before Twilight teleported them to avoid any of the girls who might be trying to bribe her despite her earlier warning... and that mob, not happening this time!  
She wrote a letter to the princess, and they had a sort of written conversation. They'd read each others letters and respond to them, before writing and sending another.  
When the girls filed in, they looked a bit apprehensive. "So, who gets the ticket?" Rainbow asked.  
"Well, let me say a few things first. Applejack, you wouldn't have much success selling your goods to the noble ponies because they're arrogant and would consider such common fare beneath them, regardless of how it tastes. However, they're always running a little short on apples since this is the closest town to Canterlot that has any and you don't sell them to it. The princess would be willing to send a representative to make a deal. The nobles may turn down common fare, but they don't care about the ingredients." Twilight told her farmpony friend.  
"Gee, thanks sugarcube." Applejack said.  
"Rainbow Dash, I don't know about the Wonderbolts' captain, but if someone jumped into the middle of one of my perfomances, that would be exactly the kind of pony I wouldn't want to have on my team. However, if you want, you can still come to the gala as Spitfire and Soarin will be there. I can't promise you'll be able to talk to them, but you might at least get an autograph out of it." Twilight said, producing enough tickets for everpony in the room to go.  
"Wow, thanks!" Rainbow said, grabbing one of the tickets.  
"Pinkie, I don't think the gala is the kind of party you'd like. In fact, it's less a party and more of a giant afternoon tea between nobles. What you're after is more like a carnival. However, the Princess is willing to let us have a party of our own after the nobles have left, and to let you help with the decorations for the gala itself." Twilight told her pink friend.  
Pinkie gasped. "It's two parties for the price of one!" she bounced up and down with glee.  
"Rarity, I've met Blueblood, and I don't think you'd like him, but you're free to come and see for yourself." Twilight said, giving Rarity a ticket.  
"Well, I'd like to meet him first darling." Rarity said, after thinking it over for a moment.  
"Fluttershy, the animals in the Royal Gardens don't react well to strangers, I can personally attest to that, but once they get used to you, they'll react the way most animals do for you. The Princess is fine with you coming to visit every few days in the weeks preceding and after the gala, whenever you want really.  
The caretaker of the gardens is a lot like a male version of you, so I think you'd get along well. Luna has been frequenting the gardens as well. She's quite sorry about what she did as Nightmare Moon, but she's not sure how to go about reintegrating herself into society. The Princess was hoping you could coax her out of her self-imposed shell." Twilight said, she knew that Fluttershy would have been willing to go to the gardens for no other reason than that, that made this was one of the worst sorts of manipulation, but it was to help a friend, two friends actually, so that made it alright... right?  
Fluttershy shifted to mothering mode almost instantly, and nodded.  
"Gosh Twi, you did all this nice stuff for us when all we did was try to pressure you into giving one of us the tickets." Applejack said.  
Twilight simply stared at them. "Is that all you have to say?"  
They looked at each other. "We won't ever just assume that you're giving us something again." Pinkie said.  
Twilight was unmoved. "Is that all you have to say?"  
"We won't ever try to use you for your connections again." Rarity said, a hit of desperation in her voice and expression.  
Twilight was still not moved. "Is that all you have to say?"  
"Well what do you want us to say?" Rainbow exploded.  
"When you do something wrong, you're supposed to say sorry." Twilight said simply.  
They stared at her, then glanced at each other before saying. "We're sorry Twilight."  
"Well, in that case I forgive you." Twilight said, smiling at them and their expressions.  
"You enjoyed that." Rainbow said.  
"Yes, but I did want you to say sorry and you did put me through a fair amount of nonsense." Twilight answered.

'Main Quest Complete! +100 exp/bits. +5 Skill points.'

Well, that took care of that nonsense.  
"Say Twi, you don't seem interested in the gala, how come you're going?" Applejack asked.  
"Well the Princess asked me to come, so I'm going. Frankly, I'd probably never go otherwise. It's that heartrendingly boring." Twilight said.  
In retrospect, she should have seen all of them deciding to come with her to make it less boring coming. Spike was pretty much a given, though she was planning on at least trying to persuade him to just come for their party afterward. However, that wasn't going to happen with all the girls insisting on coming.  
She raised Combat, Resilience, Blade-wielding, and Negative Magic to 86/1000 with the points, and Positive Magic to 95/1000.

'Chapter Progress: 1 quest completed, 0 stars found, 650 exp to next level.'


	13. Griffon The Brush Off

She'd decided to follow through Applebuck Season as per baseline, since it was an important lesson for AJ on accepting help from others when she needed it. She'd completed that Main Quest for 100 Exp/bits for 5 Skill points, which had caused a fair number of new Side Quests to spring up. She'd done 22 extermination Side Quest for 50 Exp/bits and 3 Skill points each, one of which introduced her to a new monster species called Slime. They were little more than semi-transparent colorless blobs and ate like they were giant amoebas.

'A fairly weak monster to start off, but they are highly adaptable, and quickly grow stronger as they do so. The oldest and strongest can achieve Boss rank easily.'

She'd also done 26 yardwork, housework, etc., Side Quests for 25 Exp/bits and 2 Skill points each, also raising her rep to the lower end of 'Local Legend' . That totaled at 1850 Exp/bits and 123 Skill points, which caused her to reach the level 13 with 1300 Exp required to reach the next level, which gave her an additional twelve Skill points, a total of 135.

She saved her Stat points because she hadn't really had any trouble with anything lately. Her HP and MP still rose the default ten points to 1835 HP, and 2097 MP.

She dumped the necessary 61 Skill points into Combat, Blade-wielding, Resilience, Positive Magic, and Negative Magic to raise them to 100/1000.

For Combat,

'At 100/1000, you've reached the level where you could be considered a master, the proverbial 'black belt' but that doesn't mean you've achieved your full potential, just that you can see the top now... barely.'

For Blade-wielding,

'At 100/1000, you've achieved the level that you could claim to be a master at, though you are not unbeatable. Someone could still beat you with a superior weapon if they were also at the level of what is considered mastery.'

For Resilience,

'At 100/1000, anyone who hits you is likely to hurt themselves more than you, though you are not invincible. A well-kept bronze sword will bend upon striking you before you would get hurt, but any greater force or better material than that [b]will[/b] hurt you, if only a little.

For Positive Magic,

'At 100/1000, you've achieved the level expected of an Archmage! ...And about a third of the level achieved by Starswirl the Bearded.'

For Negative Magic,

'At 100/1000, you've achieved the same level of understanding Sombra did before being consumed by the negative energies he sought to control.'

This unlocked a slew of new skills.

'Close Combat. 0/1. For 10 MP, you can triple the damage you deal from direct physical attacks at the cost of doubling the physical attack damage you receive in return.

Mega Strength. 0/1. For 100 MP per attack, you can deal 100 damage in a direct physical attack, regardless of enemy defences. However, this Skill disregards any bonuses from your Stats and other Skills.'

That last one had the potential to be very useful against an enemy with strong defenses. Still, 100 MP per use was exorbitant, even with her reserves. Still, with her regeneration, she'd be able to get 21 uses out of it if she needed to.

'One Mare Army 0/1. For 1000 MP, rain a series of lightning fast attacks on the enemy that are almost guaranteed to do over 1000 damage to each within ten feet of the main target.'

Now [b]that[/b] was going to be useful. An attack like that was good for use in a pinch.

'Sword-play. 0/10. A skill that increases your skill with a sword a great deal more per point than Blade-wielding does, but doesn't transfer to all bladed weapons, just swords and knives. This includes kitchen knives and weapons that were carved into a sword-like shape.

Zantesuken. 0/1. A one-hit kill technique. It costs 1000 MP, has a one day cooldown period. It's inaccurate, unwieldy, and leaves you immobile for ten seconds afterward, so make sure it hits it's target.'

That was potentially incredibly useful, but she had to be careful about using it.

'Damage Reflection. 0/10. Reflects a small amount of the force used against you on the user, 1% per point, this skill does not come into effect unless there is physical contact, as such, most spells will not be reflected.

Lesser Force. 0/1. Quote, "If two forces come into conflict, the weaker one always comes away damaged." unquote. If the attack is completely neutralized by your Skills/Stats, the damage is sent back at the attacker. This only applies if the attack does zero damage to you.

Lead Body. 0/10. Your body is lead-hard, add points to increase your body's toughness further.'

Well, Lesser Force only applied if she didn't take any damage from an attack, so really, it just made an unfair fight more unfair.

'Avid Student. 0/1. Decreases the necessary time required to learn a spell, theory, or grasp another type of magic. This applies to all magic, positive, negative, light, dark, elemental, etc.

Positively Absorbent. 0/1. You absorb 5% of the MP used in a Positive Magic spell that hits you.'

That could also potentially be useful, but she hadn't encountered many magic users outside of Bosses, so not so much with the grunts.

'Negatively Absorbent. 0/1. You absorb 5% of the MP used in a Negative Magic spell that hits you.'

One of her eyes twitched, then she facehooved. That was a bad pun.

'Unpossessable. 0/1000. Heightens your resistance to outside influences. At a high enough level, 200 or so, you can shrug off possession by a high level demon like it was nothing. As it stands, only your Will Stat is in the way of that.'

Potentially vital, but she'd had no experience with actual possession beyond Nightmare Moon and Luna. Though calling that possession might not be entirely correct.

'Enhancement. 0/1000. Allows you to enhance both your body and objects you are either in contact with, or are grasping with your magic by your skill level as a percent for 1 MP per second. 10/1000 would allow you to enhance something by 10% for example. WARNING! Attempting to enhance something beyond your current skill level will succeed, but will cause damage every second you keep something enhanced. It is also unimaginably painful to experience.'

That sounded like a wonderful Skill at first, but it really wasn't, it was only viable for use so long as the Enhancement did not exceed the rate at which her MP regenerated. On that note, she dumped her Stat points into Regen to help with that. Of course, having one's healing exceed the rate at which they were damaged pretty much guaranteed victory.

'Str 67, Int 80, Agi 79, Con 79, Will 65, Regen 90, Wis 64, Chr 66, Lck 64. HP 1825, Shd 50, MP 2087.'

She got all the Skills with less than a maximum of 1000 maxed out. She raised Unpossessable to 25/1000 just in case, and Enhancement to 10/1000 because any further would outstrip her regeneration.

For Unpossessable,

'At 10/1000, you can put up slightly more of a fight against possession than a normal pony. Curses and the like will have slightly less effect.

At 20/1000, you are noticeably more difficult to affect with curses and low level evil spirits will need your permission to inhabit your body. Of course, by low level I mean unable to form their own body.'

It seemed that this was one that didn't have give you Skills every ten points. Since she'd had no real problems with possession, she'd be inclined to ignore this Skill in favor of ones that were more useful, but from the sound of it, the Unpossessable skill might also give her an immunity to the Poison Joke and Discord's influence. Now that made it worth dumping points into

For Enhancement,

'At 10/1000, you can safely enhance yourself to 10% better than your original ability level.'

She'd raised her Enhancement to 10/1000, putting her maximum she could use without exceeding both her HP and MP regeneration at 19%, though only 9% before she exceeded her MP regeneration.

Hopefully she would be able to resist the effects of Poison Joke at this skill level, but she was skeptical of her chances to be able to resist Discord's abilities, even with her much higher Will Stat. She went to the Main Menu, intending to visit the other timelines to do some more quests and get some skill points to fill it out, when she discovered that she'd unlocked a few new Avatars.

The first had a set of robes similar to Starswirl the Bearded's, and a classic witch's hat. She was another biped, and was carrying a spellbook in her hands.

'Mage Twilight: 5th Holy Grail War version. This version of Twilight is a friend and ally of one of the masters during the Holy Grail War. The Holy Grail War is a clash between seven mages and seven Heroic Spirits over a wish-granting device known as the Holy Grail (not the Athurian one, this one is artificial).

Heroic Spirits are great heroes from legend who are summoned from the throne of heroes, though this does not specify that they be heroes according to modern morality, nor do they have to have done their heroic acts at that point in time, only that they have become well-known figures who have achieved legendary status.

Heroic Spirits require masters who provide them with magical energy, because the world behaves hostilely towards magic, and will attempt to crush it out of existence through sheer force of will. This is a problem as the Heroic Spirits are only able to exist in the present through magic. Unlocked by reaching an Int and Wis of 50+, and a Combat, Resilience, Positive Magic, and Negative Magic skill level of 100 or more.'

Twilight examined the book closer, and discovered that she could actually read the book, and it had an impressive array of combat-oriented spells that she would likely be expected to know if she chose this Avatar. She read them through, and got them down fairly quickly thanks to her Skills. She smiled at having gotten these out of the system without having to actually go through a world.

The next Avatar was another biped. She appeared to be some kind of soldier.

'Human Merc Twilight. This version grew up witnessing the world's evil as a child, and as such has a relatively... 'flexible' morality. It depends a great deal on her mood and the peoples she's around. She does have a moral code, so there are people she won't work for no matter how much she's offered. Which is usually a lot, as she is famous for always accomplishing her mission so long as she isn't mislead about the target or targets. She is also remarkably difficult to kill. Unlocked by reaching a Str, Con, Regen, and Lck of 50+ and a Combat, Resilience, and Blade-wielding skill level of 100 or more.'

Okay... maybe not that one unless she was desperate.

The next was a biped decked-out in a full suit of armor and held a sword that glowed faintly.

'Arthurian Knight Twilight. This version is a member of the Knights of the Round Table, a group dedicated to three things. Serving King Arthur, protecting the weak and innocent from the wrongdoings of the strong, and finding the Holy Grail. She is one of the foremost knights, having a masterful use of her weapon, a great deal of speed and strength behind it, and a minor holy blade. She's also one of the closest to the wizard Merlin besides Arthur himself. Merlin is the only one who knows that Twilight is a girl. She has managed to keep it a secret thus far. This was necessary due to the fact that the common people held an extremely traditional mindset in this era. Prerequisite: Swordsmare Twilight. Unlocked by reaching a Str, Agi and Will of 50+, and a Combat and Blade-wielding skill level of 100 or more.'

Well, she could work with this one. The mindset of the public was probably not going to change no matter how she demonstrated herself, from what she knew ponykind's own pre-Equestria age. She'd have to hide her gender like the Avatar's description said.

The last new Avatar was a pony, and had a glowing sword in her magical grasp, but seemed no different from the Base Avatar otherwise.

'Paladin Twilight. This version is the youngest ever paladin in an Equestria where demons and the undead wander freely after an accident in another nation spilled over and caused these creatures to wipe out roughly half of civilization before any sort of real resistance could be mustered. She possesses a holy blade, which greatly increases her effectiveness against such creatures. She's wanted revenge ever since her family was killed by these things. As such, she pursues them with a tenacity that borders on insane. Prequisite: Swordsmare Twilight. Unlocked by reaching 50+ in all Stats, and a Combat, Resilience, Blade-wielding, Positive Magic, and Negative Magic skill level of 100 or more.'

Well, that one sounded like a major personality change, so maybe or maybe not. First, something was telling her to check her Cheats. She did so, and discovered,

'Rep Carry Over: Causes rep. increases to carry over between Avatars, only applies to public opinion. Is retroactive, carrying over bonuses that you've already obtained.

Money Carry Over: Causes money to carry over between Avatars.

Subspace pocket: A special space only you have access to that you can access at all times, anything stored within carries over between Avatars. You have access to one cubic meter of space multiplied by your level.'

...YES! Now she could grab her notes from her other timelines, and she could take those two holy blades from their respective timelines.

She activated all three, and then took advantage of it to obtain her notes from her previous Avatars and the holy blades from both Arthurian Knight and Paladin. She got to the point where she got the holy blade in Arthurian, then switched to paladin and got the one from there before switching back so she could use them both in Arthurian and Paladin.

With the actual notes from her other Avatars, she could work better, since she was generally operating entirely on memory. Her memory was improved by an amount that bordered on not even being funny, but it had it's limits.

She started off in Athurian and joined Arthur's Round Table soon after he was made king. She'd discovered her holy blade in a cave not far from the lake where Arthur had received Excalibur and it's scabbard. She mainly kept the peace, hunting down bandits and rogue mages and knights, and learned a trick or two from Merlin. Then Morgan Le Fay got involved, she was able to turn Mordred against his father, and titanic battles ensued. Arthur's forces were further weakened when Lancelot betrayed him for Guinivere, who had secretly been... meeting Lancelot for some time.

The blow was heavy because Lancelot was the closest to Arthur, both in terms of sheer martial might, and they were close friends. She finally left when Mordred struck down his father. She'd tried again, and again to save him, but no matter how many times she loaded her last save file in that Avatar, she couldn't. All the other knights, with the sole exception of herself had fallen on both sides. She'd arrived at the magical duel just as Merlin was struck down by Le Fay.

In Paladin, she'd arrived a day before the demon attack, she wasn't sure if it was a glitch in the game or what, but her skills were locked until after the attack left her parents and brother dead. She'd started to hate the game with a passion after that, but since she couldn't retaliate against the game itself, she turned her rage on the ones more directly responsible, the demons and undead who'd done the deed. To be more accurate, the locks broke moments after her family was dead.

Celestia and Luna took her in, and, upon her request, trained her to be a paladin, granting her a minor holy blade that had simply been gathering dust in the vaults beforehand. She quickly rose through the ranks, and eventually helped push back the demonic and undead forces, before she joined an assault on the stronghold of the leader of the dark forces, and had a personal hoof in finishing him.

She'd also gotten 5 stars, a fair amount of exp and skill points in those two worlds from 53 quests, a horde of fights with the grunt enemies, and Boss fights. 3000 Exp/bits, and 180 skill points counting the ones from the stars. She got a large amount of new enemy data as well.

'Rogue Mage. A mage who has either left or been abandoned by their master and turned against the people they were originally supposed to protect.

Rogue Knight. A knight who has either betrayed or abandoned their lord and essentially become little more than a dangerous and well-trained thief.

Lancelot. A knight once loyal to King Arthur who became enamored of the King's wife, Guinevere, eventually leading to his lord's death.

Morgan Le Fay. A witch who's powers rival Merlin's, she proved no match for comparable magic power and a holy blade.

Skeleton. Basic undead, just the skeleton of someone who died animated by the dark spell that brought them back to a sort of half-life.

Zombie. Not a zombie as in contagious, but someone halfway between life and death. Their bite is, however, likely to make you ill due to the bacteria in it's mouth.

Imp. The lowest class of demon. They have little more power than the average person.

Lesser Demon. A demon strong enough to pose a threat to trained personnel, but not that high in the demonic hierarchy.

Demon. The classic demon, this one is significantly superior to even a paladin, though this is generally only true of greenhorns.

Greater Demon. A demon of considerable power. Few have managed to defeat one unaided.

Demon Lord. A demon that has command over demons of lower rank. Less than five have ever been defeated prior to this entry. Revision: Less than thirty have been defeated.

Overlord: The leader and most powerful of all the demons. With his defeat, the demonic invasion has been broken.'

She'd gotten through these two because she'd switched between them and grabbed both their holy blades before using them to take care of foes that would have challenged her if she'd only had one sword with holy properties.

She had reached level 15 with 1200 Exp to reach the next level. She raised her Regen to 100 and increased her first five Stats by one with her remaining 5 Stat points.

'Str 73, Int 86, Agi 85, Con 85, Will 71, Regen 100, Wis 69, Chr 71, Lck 69. HP 1895, Shd 50, MP 2157.'

She raised her Unpossessable to 137, Combat, Resilience, Blade-wielding, Positive Magic, and Negative Magic to 114/1000, and Enhancement to 20/1000. For Unpossessable

'At 100 or more, you will resist anything short of an internally applied curse, a possession by a high-ranking demon, or Discord's influence with direct contact, though he'll actually have to put some effort forth.'

For Enhancement,

'At 20 or more, you can enhance yourself to 20% better than your original ability level.'

Huh, it seemed that her skills didn't have a description change every ten points when they passed 100.

Anyway, she was unsure of how to deal with Gilda beyond baseline, so she decided to just be more supportive of Pinkie this time... and to avoid having anything to dangerous in the flask the third time she went through, she'd forgotten about that prank because it had been harmless the first time, the second time had blown up the whole library. She wondered if it meant there was something wrong with her that she was starting to care more about having to do things over than actually dieing, even in pain.

She followed baseline up to when Pinkie came to the library.

"Twilight, there's new friend of Dashie's that's really mean!" Pinkie said, bursting through the door and smashing Spike into the wall.

'Main Quest! Resolve the problem with Gilda.'

Twilight quickly fixed Spike up, and as soon as she was sure he was alright, asked. "What'd she do?"

"She keeps stealing Rainbow Dash away, she popped my balloon's, and she told me to buzz off and then broke my favorite set of propellers!" Pinkie pulled said set of propellers out of nowhere and showed them to her purple friend. They were pretty badly damaged, as if they'd taken a massive impact. This was quality steel too, how did this happen?

"Why did you have propellers out?" Twilight asked, honestly curious.

"So I could reach Dashie when she was 100 feet in the air, of course. It's a good thing I have infinity Luck, or I might have been hurt by the fall." she said nonchalantly.

Twilight froze. That gryphon had almost killed her friend! Okay, maybe she ought to teach Gilda a lesson. After the events of baseline, of course.

"Well, tell you what, why don't you try throwing her a party to see if that improves her attitude?" Twilight asked. "I'll be happy to help." she continued. She was aware that this wasn't going to work, but she ought to let Pinkie try to resolve this herself.

"Great idea! If a party doesn't fix her up, I don't know what will!" Pinkie said. After about fifteen minutes, the party was ready. Somehow. "Don't question it Twilight. Don't. Question. It." she muttered to herself.

"So who's this Gilda Ah haven't heard anything about?" AJ asked Rarity.

"I heard that she's one of Rainbow Dash's old friends." Rarity answered. "She's a gryphon apparently."

Twilight walked over to Fluttershy. "You've met Gilda, right? What do you think of her?" she asked her pegasus friend.

"She's kind of... scary." Fluttershy said, more timid than usual about the subject.

"I see." Twilight's expression cooled a few degrees. It seemed that Gilda had frightened Fluttershy as well. She definitely needed to teach the gryphon a lesson. Twilight was only planning to scare her a bit. She probably wouldn't have any nightmares.

Gilda arrived rather quietly, and Pinkie welcomed her with the usual amount of cheer. "Gilda! I'm so honored to throw you a signature Pinkie Pie welcoming party. And I really, truly, sincerely hope you feel welcome here amongst all us ponyfolk." Pinkie outstretched a hoof, and Gilda took it, only to fall for the classic jollybuzzer prank. Gilda quickly recovered and glared at Pinkie as she giggled.

Rainbow Dash had arrived just as that happened. "Oh Pinkie Pie, the old hoofshake buzzer. You are a scream!" she said.

"Yeah, good one Pinkie Pie." Gilda responded.

"Come on G, I'll introduce you to some of my other friends." Rainbow Dash said.

"Heh, right behind you Dash." Gilda said. She turned to Pinkie and said, "I know what you're up to."

"Great!" Pinkie said, unintimidated.

"I mean, I know what you're planning." Gilda responded.

"Well I hope so, this party wasn't supposed to be a secret!" Pinkie said.

"I mean, I've got my eye on you." Gilda responded, leaning in close.

"And I've got my eye on you!" Pinkie's eyes were almost touching Gilda's when they bugged out as if to emphasize her sentence. "Everyone, I'd like you to meet Gilda!" Pinkie announced to the partygoers. "She's a longtime friend of Rainbow Dash's." She glomped Gilda. "Let's honor her and welcome her to Ponyville." Gilda smiled with an obvious amount of discomfort as the ponies cheered. "Help yourself!" Pinkie said, making a sweeping gesture at the nearby table, which was covered with party food.

"Vanilla Lemon drops? Don't mind if I do." Gilda grabbed one with her talons and popped it in her mouth. She teared up, then let out a burst of flame, which Pinkie nonchalantly roasted a marshmallow on a stick on. "Hot!" she cried.

"G! The punch!" Rainbow called, pointing at said drink. Gilda tried to drink it, only for the drink to spill out the bottom of the cup.

"Well waddya know? Pepper in the vanilla lemon drops, and a dribble glass!" Pinkie said as the ponies laughed without any malice.

"Hah hah! Priceless!" Rainbow said.

Gilda sped over to a normal wooden glass, and drank it's contents to get the spicy taste off her tongue. "Yeah, hilarious." she said, rolling her eyes. "Hey G, look, presents!" Rainbow called, pointing at the pile of presents in one corner, how Gilda had missed it was a mystery, but she sped over to it immediately as soon as it was pointed out to her. Twilight sighed, Gilda was either stupid or greedy. She was going to bet on the latter for now. The first present Gilda opened was the fake snakes in a jar gag.

"Fake snakes! Somepony boobytrapped the presents!" Applejack said between laughing.

"I bet I know who that was." Gilda muttered, glancing at Pinkie.

"You do?" Pinkie asked innocently. After Fluttershy's birds sang, Pinkie rolled out a giant cake, yelling, "Cake time everypony!"

"Hey, can I blow out the candles?" Spike asked.

"Why don't we let Gilda do that Spike? She's the guest of honor after all." Twilight responded.

"Exactly." Gilda said, as she knocked Spike over as she was moving over to the cake and not being the least bit sorry about it. She took a deep breath and blew out the candles, only for them to burst back to life. She blew them out again, and this time the partygoers started laughing as the candles flared up again. She blew them out over and over, only for them to light back up again.

Spike chuckled, and said. "Relighting birthday candles, I love that prank! What a classic!"

"Now I wonder who could have done that?" Pinkie asked.

"Yeah, I wonder." Gilda said through gritted teeth.

"Who cares?" Spike said as he burrowed into the cake, then ate his way to the top. "This cake is amazing!" he said as he burst out.

"Spike, that was for everyone." Twilight reprimanded.

"It's great! Try some!" he responded. Gilda was growing increasingly annoyed.

"Hey G, you're not mad about a few pranks, are you?" Rainbow asked.

"Hey, no way Dash, I'm down with a good prank." Gilda responded.

"Good, then let's have some cake!" Rainbow said, getting a plate and fork.

Gilda grabbed Pinkie and brought her up to her face. "I'm watching you, like a hawk." Gilda said, once again, failing to be intimidating. Twilight's eyes narrowed

"Why? Can't you watch me like a gryphon?" Pinkie asked, unfazed.

"Hey y'all, time for pin the tail on the pony!" AJ called. Gilda let go of Pinkie, then smiled innocently.

"Oh, that's my favorite party game! Can I go first? Can I have the purple tail?" Rarity asked.

"Well I'm the guest of honor, and I'll take the purple tail." Gilda said.

"Yeah Gilda should definitely go first. Let's get you blindfolded!" Pinkie said. Spike hopped up and covered Gilda's eyes.

"Hey, what are you doing?!" Gilda asked in annoyed.

Pinkie started spinning Gilda rapidly. "We're spinning you around and around so you can pin the tail on the pony." Pinkie stopped spinning Gilda. "Now just walk straight ahead and pin the tail!" Pinkie said.

"Yeah right, this is another prank, isn't it? I'm going this way." Gilda said, turning the completely wrong direction and heading in it.

"Gilda, wait! The poster's this-" Pinkie cut off as Gilda slipped on some cake and out the door with a crash. Gilda was covered in cake and had the tail draped on her face like a mustache. "Uh, Gilda? You put the tail on the wrong end." Pinkie said. The partygoers laughed at the sight in front of them in response to that remark.

Gilda finally snapped and roared at the crowd, splattering the cake she was covered in everywhere and sending the tail flying. "You call this a good time?! I've never met a lamer bunch of losers in all my life!" She turned to Pinkie and got right in her face. "And you Pinkie Pie, you're queen lameo with your weak little party pranks! Did you really think you could make me lose my cool? Well, Dash and I have ten times as much cool as the rest of you put together." Twilight noted the disapproval on Rainbow's face. "Come on, Rainbow Dash, we're bailing on this lame scene!" Gilda turned and started to walk away, before noticing Rainbow wasn't following her. "I said come on, Rainbow Dash! We're leaving!" Gilda growled.

"You know Gilda, I'm the one who set up all those weak pranks at this party. So I guess that makes me queen lameo!" Rainbow said.

"Come on Dash, you're joshing me!" Gild said, trying to save face.

"They weren't all meant for you, it was just bad luck that you set them all off." Rainbow said.

"I should have known, that dribble glass had Rainbow Dash written all,over it!" Pinkie cried.

"No way, it was Pinkie Pie, she set this party to trip me up, to make a fool of me!" Gilda said.

"Me? I threw this party to improve your attitude. Twilight and I thought a party might turn that frown upside-down." Pinkie responded to the accusation.

"It's worked before." Twilight said shrugging.

"And you sure didn't need any help making a fool of yourself! You know, this is not how I though my old friend would treat my new friends!" Rainbow said, advancing a few steps towards Gilda. "If being cool is all you care about, then maybe you should go make some new cool friends... someplace else." Rainbow said.

Gilda gritted her teeth and said, "Yeah well, you're such an- a flip-flop! Cool one minute and lame the next! If you decide not to be lame anymore, give me a call." Gilda said. Twilight slipped a tracking spell on the gryphon as she left. She'd have a... talk with Gilda after the party.

"Wow, talk about a party-pooper." Spike said, pointing a claw at where Gilda had been. The crowd muttered it's agreement.

"I'm sorry, everypony, for bringing Gilda here. I didn't realize how rude she was, and Pinkie Pie, I'm really sorry she ruined this awesome party you threw her." Rainbow apologized.

"Hey, if you want to hang out with party-poopers, that's your business, not mine." Pinkie said.

"I'd rather hang out with you, no hard feelings?" Rainbow asked.

"No hard feelings." Pinkie responded. They shook hooves, and were both shocked as they'd tried the buzzer trick with each other. Everyone laughed at that.

"Sorry neither of you got through to Gilda, but we can still have fun at this party, right?" Twilight asked.

"You bet we can! Come on everypony, there's lots more partying to do!" Pinkie said.

'Main Quest Complete! +100 Exp/bits. +5 Skill points.'

After the party, Twilight sent the baseline letter to the princess, and teleported to Gilda's location, only to find her being harassed by a pack of timberwolves. Well, not what she had in mind, but this could work. She had covered herself in a cloak so Gilda wouldn't recognize her. She approached, causing the timberwolves to shift their focus to her. She took them all out at once with One Mare Army.

Each slice with her swords was backed by three times her normal strength and speed, and each slice led into the next flawlessly. From an outside perspective, each of the thirty attacks was part of a dance of death that only the magically enhanced eyes of a pegasus or alicorn, or the literal eagle eyes of a gryphon could catch at the speeds she was moving at.

Gilda simply gaped, then asked. "Who are you?"

"Someone who you've managed to annoy, consider what just happened a demonstration of what will happen if you don't improve your attitude." Twilight answered. Gilda was sufficiently cowed by that that Twilight believed that she would at least make an effort to improve her attitude. With that, she teleported to the library. That took care of that. She was going to do something different with Trixie when she got here.

'Chapter Progress: 103 quests completed. 5 stars found. 1000 Exp to next level.'


	14. Arena

For her plan, Twilight needed practice dealing with things many times her size, and a number of new magic tricks. She could assume that Trixie would act about the same, and that Snips and Snails would bring the Ursa Minor to town unless she acted directly to stop them.

As such, she was going to visit the main menu to get some research time and practice in. She saved her game, and entered the main menu. She discovered an update was available. After getting it, she got a message.

'Arena function now available. The Arena allows you to fight against various opponents for the usual rewards, and certain special rewards varying from perks to special items. Perks are small bonuses that always apply to you, whether or not you have your Skills and Stats locked as part of the storyline. The special items are generally various enchanted items and powerful weapons.'

'Now this is interesting, I wonder what kind of opponents I'll be facing.' she thought. She'd discovered during the Arthurian Avatar that she actually kind of liked to fight opponents that challenged her.

She selected Arena, and found herself in an old Roman Colosseum in perfect condition. A new menu hovered in front of her. It had three options: Duel, Crossover Battles, Tournament. She didn't count the Quit option. The game was helpful enough to explain.

'Duel is a fight between yourself and one of the characters in baseline. Be warned that all opponents will be be trying to kill you in Arena fights, so you should respond in kind since killing them here will have no effect on any of the versions of them in-game. These battles will award you with Exp, Bits, and Skill points. Only a few of the stronger foes will grant you perks.

Crossover Battles are fights between yourself and an opponent in one of the alternate Avatars, or even from outside the game. These award you with perks and special items, but not Exp or Bits.

Tournament is a series of battles against various groups of grunt enemies with Boss rank enemies mixed in, usually near the end. Will award Exp, Skill points, special items, and perks.'

She started off with Duel, she was given a list of people she had close ties with or encounters that left a deep impression. This included her friends, Spike, Celestia and Luna, her family, Cadance, Gilda, Trixie, Zecora, Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Chrysalis. She really hadn't interacted that much with anyone else.

Oddly, there were a couple she didn't recognize, someone named Sunset Shimmer, and apparently Sombra was going to be a problem in the future since he had a dark miasma even on the list. It might have been nice to know she'd be in human form during the fights, but she could actually fight better this way. Perhaps she ought to work on a spell to put her in this form at will.

She defeated all but Celestia, Luna and her darker half, Sombra, and Discord with ease, though a couple of them managed to avoid getting hit the first time. When she fought them, they proved much more of a challenge. She was not going to fight Chrysalis just yet. She wasn't sure how she'd react to the one who'd killed her.

Celestia had 10,000 HP like Nightmare Moon, and used teleportation along with spells centered around light and holy energies. She had to resort to a construct since her holy swords were barely even affecting Celestia. She used One Mare Army to deal over 8,000 points of damage the moment she had an opening, combined with the damage she'd already dealt, that left Celestia with just over 1,000 HP, but Twilight's MP was mostly used up, and her HP was at two-thirds of full.

The next few minutes were a blur of swordplay and beam attacks. If not for her enhanced regeneration and experience with opponents that had more HP than her, she'd have lost, as it was, she was hard-pressed. Normally she'd have enjoyed a fight like this, but fighting her mentor simply felt wrong.

Luna had only 9,000 HP, but was less of a direct fighter. She'd prefer to hit you from behind like an assassin, but could also tank attacks that would instantly kill a normal person. Still, her offensive power was much less than Celestia's, to the point that Twilight was sure that if it came to a fight between them, Celestia would win nine times out of ten.

Luna's magic was darker and subtler than Celestia's, but Twilight ultimately won. Luna had been able to dodge the brunt of One Mare Army, so Twilight had been forced to fight close quarters for a great deal longer. Luckily, Luna was slightly more vulnerable to holy blades than a normal person, likely due to her time as Nightmare Moon.

Nightmare Moon was essentially a more powerful version of Luna, one Twilight was only able to beat this time thanks to her holy blades, which were at least three times as effective on her as Luna. She kept One Mare Army in reserve, as it was becoming something of a trump card. She finally used it when Nightmare Moon made the mistake of getting in close.

Sombra was an unusual one. He couldn't manifest his corporeal body for more than 15 seconds, but it gave his negative magic a huge boost, and his shadow form could easily dodge most attacks. The dark crystals that manifested where he cast spells and when his shadow form traveled across the ground were more annoying than anything else. Still, she was surprised when they turned out to be viable amplifiers of his spells. She didn't bother with One Mare Army since he'd just revert to shadow form, which even her holy blades had reduced effect on. She assumed it was because the shadow form wasn't solid enough for the holy blades to do much cutting.

Still, Sombra was pretty much done for since even staying in existence was a small drain on his MP from what she could tell, not enough to cause him to disappear, but enough to drastically slow the rate at which he recovered it. Once he got low enough that he wouldn't risk spells, she had the upper hand.

She selected Discord. One second in...

"Oh, hello there Twilight. Your life's been pretty messed up lately, hm?" Discord asked even as he started throwing giant swordfish and deadly jellyfish at her.

"How-? You remember the baseline?!" Twilight asked as she easily dodged or deflected the attacks.

"I'm the spirit of chaos and disharmony, why do you keep expecting the rules to apply to me?" he asked, amused. He switched tactics to sand constructs and pies that imploded the space around them when they landed.

"In retrospect, I suppose that is kind of stupid, huh? Want to prank Celestia when you break out in a year or so?" she asked. Most pranks would necessitate failing the presumable main quest of resealing Discord. She was sure that offer would distract him long enough to provide an opening though. She only needed a moment.

"I would, but I only remember what happens in all the different Avatars you unlock out here." Discord said, keeping her busy with evil plants. She found it was best to just deal with what he did and not question it. Despite the fact that every fiber of her being was screaming at the illogical happenings around her. She'd barely had time to send a few volleys at him, and he was keeping a field of chaos magic around himself that would likely turn her into a pile of mush if she tried to teleport over there. Whether she liked it or not, she'd have to either outlast someone who'd required the elements of harmony when Celestia and Luna were wielding them, or move into a close enough position to use One Mare Army or Zantesuken on him.

"Hax! I call Hax!" she said as he simply moved his body around the shots, even if that required pulling it apart.

"What did I just say about me and the rules?" Discord asked as he shot ice cubes at her that burst into huge flaming conflagrations when they landed.

"There's a difference between being a rule-breaker and just being Broken." she responded. She was almost able to grasp his chaos magic... there! Her orderly mind rebelled against the illogical formulas and principles that governed chaos magic, but she was also the element of magic, and that included what Discord used.

She began to respond to his various insane attacks with her own brand of insanity. Self-duplicating swords that ignored the laws of reality, clam cannons, giant spiders made of trees. In tandem with her own brand of magic, as well as what she'd copied from the other high-level opponents, Discord soon found himself on the losing side of their fight.

Finally she got close enough to use One Mare Army, and hit him with it. He could only separate his body so much, and he wasn't able to handle her tripled speed well enough to dodge. His own scrambling of the space around him made it so he couldn't teleport himself out of the way. As such, she managed 11,000 points of damage. Just to be safe, she followed with Zantesuken, and sliced him in half at a speed she couldn't even comprehend, so Discord likely didn't even know what happened until he ended up split in two with infinity damage done to him.

"Well now, I wanted to know how much you improved, but this is a little frightening." Discord said quietly, before disappearing as every fallen opponent did here, and the game saved itself over the file she'd saved last on.

Like every opponent she fought in the Duel section, he awarded 100 Exp and Bits, along with 10 Skill points. After Discord, she'd defeated 19 Duel opponents, earning 1900 Exp and Bits, and 190 Skill points. She reached level 16 with 700 Exp to the next level, granting her an additional 6 Skill points. She put Regen at 105.

'Stats: Str 73, Int 86, Agi 85, Con 85, Will 71, Regen 105, Wis 69, Chr 71, Lck 69. HP 1905, Shd 50, MP 2167. New sub-Stat unlocked! Sub-Stats are special Stats that are unlocked when you increase a Stat to more than 100.

Sub-Stat is Battle Continuation. This Stat determines what is considered an instant kill attack for you. Regeneration will normally heal all injuries given enough time, but being cut in half will generally kill everything, regardless of their HP and/or healing. Bat Con can increase the lower limit of what will kill you instantly. At a high enough level, you'll grow back your head and put yourself back together after being cut in half or even torn to shreds. Current value of Bat Con is 12. Note that sub-Stats are not affected by the +1 to Stats that golden stars grant you.'

Well, that was more than a little disturbing. Still, she had something to dump points into now that would make her nigh unkillable, though she was glad her tolerance for pain was so high now. They wouldn't kill her, but the examples that had been listed would still hurt like mad.

She raised Combat, Resilience, Blade-wielding, Positive Magic, and Negative Magic to 158/1000, saving the last Skill point for later. Their descriptions didn't change, so she had to assume they changed every 100 points after that first hundred.

She'd also obtained several of the perks the description had mentioned. Defeating Celestia gave her Holy Might, which increased the effectiveness of holy weapons and items she used by 10%, and reduced their effectiveness against her by the same margin. Defeating Nightmare Moon had granted her Unholy Might, which did the same thing as Holy Might, but with unholy weapons and items. Defeating Luna granted her Presence Concealment, which allowed her to reduce her presence at will, down to the level that most people would take no more notice of her than a single blade of grass in a vast lawn. Defeating Sombra gave her Difficult To Kill, attacks would do reduced damage, even if they specifically targeted her weak points. Though the reduction was only 5%, that was enough to tip the scales if she was fighting someone she was closely matched with, like Discord. Discord's perk was Jack Of All Trades. She got a 1% boost to everything imaginable, from intelligence and attack power, to a reduction to damage done to her.

Next on the list was Crossover Battles. First was some guy named Alucard (Single gun. Cromwell Seal locked at Level 5.) She assumed that meant there was more than one version of him, that, or she was facing a weaker version. He wore a red fedora, had black hair, wore orange sunglasses, had a fanged grin, had a red coat over a black suit with white gloves and a red tie, with black boots.

"Well, you have an interesting presence, let's see if you can entertain me." Alucard said as he brought the gun to bear on her.

"Considering you are apparently a vampire of some kind, or at least something similar, I feel it's only fair to warn you that these are holy blades." Twilight responded.

"Hm? It's rare to see broadsword holy blades. Holy blades are rare in and of themselves, but most of them are blades that agents of the Church bless personally. Yours seem to be a level above those though." Alucard noted as he fired on her, she could tell the bullets were very slightly holy, but much less so than her own blades. She was able to deflect all of them, despite the expert markmanship and sheer force behind them. Several of these would be enough to blow through six feet of concrete. He was giving her a challenge, so she decided to up the ante.

She teleported behind him, and sliced a debilitating cut across his back. She was understandably surprised when he regenerated from it in seconds. "What exactly are you? I severed your spinal column! A demon of anything below nobility would have been unable to move from that for nearly five minutes at least!" she asked, narrowly dodging three shots from the now grinning vampire.

"A real vampire." Alucard said, his grin widening slightly. He seemed like the type to enjoy a fight that was an actual fight instead of a slaughter. Though if this was the weak version, what was the strong one like? She was only able to block so many shots before one would get through, and though she healed fast enough to put her on a level where she could give this guy a run for his money, she wasn't going to tank hits if she could avoid it.

Since he seemed to have an advanced healing factor, she didn't hold back on serious attacks. She wanted to beat him, not tear him apart, but if she held back he'd tear her apart.

Perhaps this Alucard had a high Bat Con. That was all she could think as his head grew back. She hadn't meant to cut off his head, she'd been sure he would dodge, and leave himself open to a cross-slash across the chest. Terrifyingly, his head simply grew back, and his grin widened further still. "Not bad at all, though you seem to rely on those holy blades pretty heavily." Alucard said, grinning like a madman.

Oddly, his HP bar was not going back up despite the fact that his wounds were healing like they were never there. Then she realized something. The bar was not counting HP, it was counting down time! It jumped down whenever she dealt damage to Alucard, but the fact of the matter was that she was only expected to keep him from killing her, not defeat him.

Considering that she had access to a quest that had pitted her up against a giant spider at the age of four, exactly how unfair a fight was this supposed to be?

She manged to take the vampire's 'HP' bar down to zero after cutting off both his arms, and decapitating him again. Once he regerated, he said, "A good fight, it's been a while since I've fought an opponent like you. Feel free to come spar with me again." then he turned and started to walk away. He paused, "I almost forgot, what's your name?" he asked.

"Twilight." she answered.

"I'll remember it." he said nodding, then disappeared.

She was awarded 1000 Exp/Bits and 10 Skill points for defeating Alucard and a perk that was called Vampire Hunter for winning the crossover battle, it increased her effectiveness against the undead by 10%.

The Exp she earned let her reach level 17 with 1400 points to reach the next level. She dumped her Stat points into Bat Con.

'Stats: Str 73, Int 86, Agi 85, Con 85, Will 71, Regen 105: Bat Con 17, Wis 69, Chr 71, Lck 69. HP 1915, Shd 50, MP 2177.

She also raised Combat, Resilience, Blade-wielding, Positive Magic, and Negative Magic to 161/1000, leaving her with two extra Skill points.

The game gave her the option of Alucard with two guns but the seal still in place, but considering the trouble she'd had with him, she'd wait before fighting a stronger version of him, she'd also unlocked someone named Father Alexander, but didn't want to chance it on somebody presumably from Alucard's universe. Instead, she chose a guy named Naruto (Pre-Retrieval, Kyuubi power locked.)

He was a teenager with blond hair, a forehead protector inscribed with a stylized leaf, blue eyes, whisker-like scars, an orange jumpsuit, and sandals.

"Hey, so sensei got you for me to spar against?" he asked, smiling cheerfully, though there was a bottomless pit of negative emotion hidden under it and in his eyes, mostly loneliness. She resolved to use the blunt side of her swords.

"Looks like it." she answered.

"Right," his expression became serious, and he held his hands in an odd position. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" he called, and there was a large cloud of smoke that dispersed to reveal a dozen more of him. His technique appeared similar, but superior to hers. His reserves were comparable to hers, but his drain was far less than her technique would have caused.

She realized his clones would probably have the same weakness as hers, and dealt them glancing blows. This caused the clones that were hit to dispel, but he had used his clones to buy the time he needed to make another 1000. This was probably because she was practically wading through his clones. They had little technique or ability in hand-to-hand combat, and only occasionally used a few... spells?

His energy was like magic, but there were differences, and she was being thrown off from copying the spells or whatever he used for the moment. She was starting to grasp them by the third time she saw them though. Noticing that his clones weren't accomplishing anything, Naruto switched tactics and gathered a ball of blue energy in his hands as one of his clones swatted it until it spun at high speeds.

Her eyes widened as she realized he was intending to use it as an attack, likely some sort of drilling attack, backed up by all that energy. "Rasengan!" Naruto called, before rushing at her. She teleported out of the way at the last second, and saw the Rasengan attack make a crater in the ground.

She teleported back in range, and engaged him in close quarters with her holy blades. She noticed that they did more damage than they should, even though she was only using the flat of the blades. Perhaps he had demonic heritage, or a close connection to one.

He was struggling to dodge, but he had improved his hand-to-hand a bit compared to the start of the fight from a combination of watching her and all the fighting he and his clones had done. This allowed him to manage a few sacrificial blows, but no dodges or blocks. He couldn't get past her guard unless she was left open by an attack on her part.

This fight would have been over a long time ago if he was better at hand-to-hand, or his regeneration wasn't so advanced. If he was better, then she would have been swarmed under when he used a thousand clones on her. If his regeneration was weaker, then he wouldn't have been able to tank all the damage he had.

She decided to end this with One Mare Army. It felt wrong to use one of the techniques she'd just learned from him, the substitution, transformation, shadow clones, and/or rasengan. She'd had a decent amount of time to figure them out, and was confident that she could perform them now. They could prove quite useful.

To her surprise, he was still standing even after that attack, though his HP was below 50. He smiled, "I'm not going down that easy." he drew back a fist, and Twilight decided to use her own. They punched each other in the face at the same time, and Naruto's HP hit 0. He got back to his feet after a moment.

"That was a good fight. I'm Twilight." she said.

Naruto grinned despite the obvious pain his bruised body was in. "Yeah it was. Naruto if you didn't know." he said, before he disappeared.

She got 1000 Exp/Bits and 10 Skill points for defeating Naruto as an opponent, leaving her with 400 points to reach the next level, unlocking someone named Sasuke Uchiha (Two-tomoe Sharingan. Curse Seal locked.), and three things from the winning of the crossover battle. A perk that was called Not Gonna Die Tonight, which immediately restored 25% of her HP if it fell to 0, but only once a day, and a pair of weapons that Naruto had been using. A kunai, which was a steel knife-like weapon that could be used as a throwing dagger or sword, and a shuriken, which was a steel five-point throwing star.

She unlocked Naruto (Post-Retrieval. Zero Tail form unlocked.), but decided to at least wait until she had taken care of all the available Crossover Battle enemies.

She raised Combat, Resilience, Blade-wielding, Positive Magic, and Negative Magic to 163/1000, leaving her with two extra Skill points.

The next opponent was Monkey D. Luffy (First Gear. Pre-Haki.), he wore a straw hat, had messy black hair, dark irises, a red vest, and wore pants with the legs cut off. "Hey, you're strong right?" Luffy asked cheerfully.

"You could say that." she said, smirking slightly. She had to wonder what this guy would do. Everyone else so far had some kind of weird ability.

"Alright then! Let's go!" he pulled his arm back, and it actually began to stretch to more than ten times it's normal length. "Gum Gum..." he began, before his fist rocketed forward at a terrifying speed. She barely raised her holy swords to block in time. "Rocket!" Luffy called.

"Well, time to test my new technique. Congratulations, you'll be the first person I ever try this on." Twilight said, before using the Kage Bunshin she'd learned by watching Naruto to make ten of herself. With her Resilience skill level, they wouldn't be able to take a direct hit, but they would be able to block those attacks without dispelling from the leftover force.

What followed would have been a pummeling on her part if Luffy hadn't jumped out of the way and smashed a leg into one of the Shadow Clones yelling, "Gum Gum Battle-axe!" he repeated this process until all the clones were gone, but hit the ground a few moments afterward. She hadn't been expecting him to be able to do something like that, still, he took a few points of damage when he came back down to the ground and got the blunt side of both her swords to the face. What's more, he had surprisingly little HP compared to some of the enemies in the Arena only 1,000.

"So how do you do that stretching thing? Shadow Clones are a technique I learned, but that stretchy thing shouldn't be possible for a human." she asked. "Not that all of the opponents I've fought have been human." she admitted.

Luffy grinned a little more widely. "I ate the Gum Gum Fruit, and now I'm a rubberman." he stretched his cheek in a way that would be impossible for a normal human. "See?" he asked, his voice slightly distorted by the odd position his mouth was in.

"I'm not even going to try to understand how your body's physiology can be changed to that degree by eating a fruit that does not seem to have been magic." Twilight deadpanned. He had a surprisingly high amount of MP, but his body lacked the signs of using magical power.

Luffy scratched his head even as he threw a kick at her in the same manner as that first punch. "Devil Fruits do all sorts of weird stuff. This one guy can take his body apart and pull it back together again." he said. Twilight dodged the first, and grabbed the second kick with one hand, before pulling Luffy in, and smashing the holy sword in her other hand into him. With her strength and Luffy's own momentum working against him, that was enough to drain more than half of his remaining 800 HP, leaving him at 376.

She followed up with another hit, but he managed to slip out of her grasp just in time to get mostly out of the way, barely even being touched, but taking another 15 points off his health.

"You know, you need to work on moving faster, you're strong, but your wind-up time is a huge opening." Twilight said.

Luffy smirked, "Then I guess I should get serious!" he pulled both arms back, and suddenly both rocketed forward at a speed she could barely react to. Nearly half the punches made it through her guard, but she took advantage of the closeness of his limbs to hit him a few times when the opportunity presented itself.

'I've got to stop talking in the middle of a fight, and I've really got to stop telling people what they should do to beat me!' she thought upon realizing she was taking more damage than him by a great deal right now. She finished him with one more attack, and was shocked to discover that he'd managed to get her below 250 HP. It had been a while since someone had come this close to beating her.

"Good fight." she said. "I'm Twilight, let's do this again sometime. It's not often I get to fight someone who's this closely matched to me." she said. Luffy simply nodded, smiling as he got up and dusted himself off in a manner that reminded her a lot of Naruto before he disappeared.

As a reward, she got the usual 1000 Exp/Bits and 10 Skill points, and unlocked Luffy (Second Gear unlocked.), for defeating the opponent, and a perk called. My Crew. The perk increased her abilities by 5% for every other person fighting on her side, and by 10% if she was fighting to rescue someone she had close ties with.

She reached level 18 with 1200 points required to reach the next level. She dumped her Stat points into Bat Con again.

'Stats: Str 73, Int 86, Agi 85, Con 85, Will 71, Regen 105: Bat Con 22, Wis 69, Chr 71, Lck 69. HP 1925, Shd 50, MP 2187. At 20+ Bat Con, your vital points being hit will not necessarily kill you instantly, a significant amount of damage would have to be done compared to a normal person.'

She also raised Combat, Resilience, Blade-wielding, Positive Magic, and Negative Magic to 166/1000, leaving her with three extra Skill points. The next opponent, after turning down Zoro who was also unlocked after she beat Luffy, was a girl called Maka Albarn (Post Professor Stein. Pre-Crona.) who had dirty blonde hair, green eyes, white gloves that were eerily similar to Alucard's, excepting that they lacked the strange seal that resembled the cirlce 'Alchemist Twilight' had been drawing a bit, a black trenchcoat over a yellow sweater vest and a white blouse, she also wore a red-and-black plaid skirt, and black combat boots with white buckles. She held a scythe in her hands, presumably her main weapon. The scythe had a plain silver-grey handle, a red eye where the handle met the blade, and a black and red zigzag pattern on the blade itself.

"So, you're the one Stein got to spar with us?" the scythe asked.

"It seems so." she said cheerfully. She'd seen weirder things than a talking weapon.

"If you don't mind me saying so, your soul is a bit... odd. It's grey, and I've only seen blue or red ones. It does seem quite strong though." Maka said, adjusting her stance slightly.

"How strong are we talking?" the scythe asked, it's eye moving towards it's wielder.

"On par with Professor Stein's." Maka answered.

"Well, you tend to get stronger more quickly if you're fighting someone as strong or stronger than you." Twilight said, drawing her holy blades. It was likely that being able to see her soul was a special ability specific to Maka or only in a select group. It seemed like a useful ability. It would be nigh impossible to hide from someone who could see your soul.

They rushed at each other at the same instant by some unspoken agreement. Twilight was surprised to find that Maka was actually quite adept with her weapon. She hadn't been doubting her opponent's abilities, it was just that the scythe was not an easily mastered weapon. What's more, there was a surprising amount of strength and speed behind each blow, more than her frame would suggest. It was almost as if she were getting support from somewhere.

Perhaps there was a way to utilize the soul itself to increase one's strength? The though occurred to her after the two combatants moved back a few paces to catch their breath. Well, more for Maka's benefit than hers, but she had been winded. She tried a technique she had come across in 'Paladin Twilight' to look inside oneself. It was half meditation and half a way to check for corruption to the soul. Some of the higher level demons had nasty tricks and auras.

She immediately sensed her opponents soul. It was smaller than her own, and blue, rather than her grey, but it seemed to be drawing strength from somewhere. She examined it more closely, and discovered another soul, which she could only assume was present in the scythe, was bonded with Maka's. She also noticed a few things about how it interacted with Maka's physical body with the increased scrutiny.

She attempted to adjust her own soul in a similar manner utilizing her understanding of the spirit and magic, and was mostly successful.

She re-opened her eyes, and noticed Maka looked grim. "Hey, what's wrong Maka?" the scythe asked.

"I don't know how she did it Soul, but her soul's power just jumped 50%." Maka answered him.

"In my defense, I don't think I could win on just skill against you. I was fighting without any boost to my physical abilities from my soul." Twilight explained, before lunging at Maka with terrifying speed.

Maka was on the defensive for the rest of the fight. Just as she was on her last legs, she said something. "We have one last chance, watch out for this. It could kill you if you're not taking it seriously." Maka said, and her soul suddenly began to super-charge. Soul started to glow blue, and evolved into a glowing blue crescent blade with a toothy mouth. Maka drew the attack back, and cried "Witch Hunter!"

Twilight slipped behind Maka with her new speed, but was forced back by the sheer power of the weapon the other girl was using when Maka turned and swung it at her. "You know, I get the impression that's meant to be a one-hit kill, but if you keep it charged like that, you have the entire strength of the ability backing your attacks." she noted, slowly getting a handle on the ability.

It was powerful, but not without imperfections. Perhaps if it was hit with spiritual energy at the right point and moment, she could break it. She was having less trouble than she would have had before in drawing her pure spiritual energy rather than magic to the surface.

Maka dodged the crackling hand that had rushed at her. "Geez, now Soul Force too? How many tricks do you have?" Soul asked.

'Oh, so they have this too? That makes sense I suppose.' she thought. "I can make fully-functional copies of myself, they don't even last a full day though, and they can't take much damage before going poof." she replied. She was starting to see why Discord liked to mess with people's heads, she decided, seeing the incredulous look on Maka's face.

The Shadow Clone technique she got from Naruto made copies that possessed the memories, personality, and abilities of their creator, but were slightly tougher than hers had been, required only 30 MP per clone, and only drained 1 MP per minute. This meant that a clone would last approximately 17 hours if they didn't use any MP and she only made one. even better, they returned the MP they had left when they dispelled.

"It's been fun Maka, but I've figured out how to stop that technique." Twilight said, appearing behind Maka in a burst of speed. Maka brought Witch Hunter to bear on her opponent, and Twilight caught the attack with one hand before breaking through it with her newly learned Soul Force. She hit Maka in the stomach with a Soul Force attack from her other hand, dropping Maka's HP to 0.

Maka panted on the ground for a minute, before getting up. "You're very good, I need to get stronger if a super-skill like Witch Hunter only delays you." she said.

"Well, the only reason I was able to do that was because there was still a flaw in the technique, super or not. You and Soul aren't completely in synch. I'd estimate 83% synchronization, enough to perform the skill obviously, but not enough to use it perfectly. My name's Twilight by the way." she said smiling as she offered the other girl a hand up. Maka took it, and Twilight was somewhat surprised when Soul turned from scythe to human and helped his wielder stagger away after they thanked her for the spar.

She got 1000 Exp/Bits with 200 left to reach level 19, and 10 Skill points, as well as a perk called Sound Soul. It increased her resistance to spiritual attacks and corruption by 10%.

She also raised Combat, Resilience, Blade-wielding, Positive Magic, and Negative Magic to 168/1000, leaving her with three extra Skill points.

Defeating Maka unlocked someone named Crona (Pre-purification.) and a guy named Son Goku (Pre- Kamehameha.)

She went after Goku, and found herself facing a kid of ten or so with an orange vest and pants, a blue belt, black spiky hair, sneakers, and a monkey's tail. He held a strange red staff in one hand.

"Hi, I'm Goku, are you strong? Master Roshi said he'd get me a sparring partner." Goku asked.

"Yeah, my name's Twilight. I'm going to assume there's more to that staff than meets the eye?" she asked, getting into a defensive stance.

"You bet!" he swung the staff at her, and it suddenly extended like Luffy's stretching. She blocked, but was pushed back anyway.

'Geez, how strong is this guy? I effectively have a Str of 109.5 thanks to Maka.' With the enhancement her soul was providing, all her physical traits were 50% better than before.

She conjured a log and threw it over Goku's head. He scratched his head, confused. "What was that supposed to do?" he asked.

Twilight replaced herself with the log, and attacked Goku from behind with the blunt side of her holy blades. He took far less damage than he should have, and actually started to smile wider than before. "Oh! Now I get it!" he drew a fist back, and when he pushed it forwards like a punch, a small energy blast radiated from it. She blocked with a Soul Force, dispelling it.

"Wow! How'd you do that?" Goku asked.

"That attack was formed of your spiritual energy, I used my own to disrupt it. It's fairly simple once you get a knack for it." Twilight responded. Goku's grin widened. What followed quickly became a brawl as Goku was barely even affected by enough force to seriously wound a normal person, and her clones simply couldn't stand up to the punishment they were taking. Goku's 2,000 HP was annoyingly slow to drop. When she tried to use the illusion technique Naruto had to fool her on his clones' positions, he quickly found her.

"That's not going to work, I can sense your energy!" he said, still grinning despite all the minor wounds he'd been dealt.

She was wearing him down. She could finish this quickly, but she wasn't trying to kill Goku, so she had to hold back a great deal. She had tried Soul Force on him several times, but it never worked for more than five seconds.

She settled in for the long-haul, and finally beat him after 20 minutes. They both panted heavily. "You were holding back too, huh?" Goku asked.

"I wasn't trying to kill you, so yeah." she answered.

Goku got up, and dusted himself off. "See you around! And thanks for the spar!" he said, before disappearing.

With the usual reward, she reached level 19 with 1100 points to reach the next level. she received a Perk called Brawler. It increased her damage-dealing when fighting bare-handed by 10% while lowering the damage done to herself by the same amount.

She also raised Combat, Resilience, Blade-wielding, Positive Magic, and Negative Magic to 169/1000, leaving 4 Skill points.

Defeating Goku also unlocked someone named Piccolo (Evil King) and Goku (Post-Kamehameha.)

She dumped her 6 Stat points into Bat Con.

'Stats: Str 73, Int 86, Agi 85, Con 85, Will 71, Regen 105: Bat Con 28, Wis 69, Chr 71, Lck 69. HP 1975, Shd 50, MP 2237.

She went to Tournament, and ended up fighting groups of the Enemies she had fought before, and a few Bosses that were nothing more than bigger versions of them with more HP. A couple tournaments even made her level up, so she ran them again.

She finished all 20 of the currently available tournaments, and got 18,000 Exp/Bits, 300 Skill points total, and a new sword known as Balad. It apparently had a special effect of calming enraged opponents. She got a perk called Crowd Control. If she was outnumbered by more than three-to-one, then she gained a 5% boost to everything.

She also reached level 26 with 1900 points left to reach level 27. That granted her an additional 48 Stat and Skill points. She dumped 22 of the Stat points into Bat Con.

'Stats: Str 73, Int 86, Agi 85, Con 85, Will 71, Regen 105: Bat Con 50, Wis 69, Chr 71, Lck 69. HP 2045, Shd 50, MP 2317. At 50 or more in Bat Con, you can survive having your head cut off, but it will deal over 1000 points in damage.'

She got Bat Con plenty high enough, now she could get Int, Agi, or Con over 100 with her remaining 26 Stat points. She decided to raise Int to 100 with 14 of her points, which unlocked Perception.

'Perception. (Per.) The ability to see the true nature of something. Don't try to understand how Pinkie does what she does with this Stat, it would require a 100 or more. Base: 11. She used her remaining 12 points on Perception. Stats: Str 73, Int 100: Per 23, Agi 85, Con 85, Will 71, Regen 105: Bat Con 28, Wis 69, Chr 71, Lck 69. HP 2045, Shd 50, MP 2447.'

She also raised Combat, Resilience, Blade-wielding, Positive Magic, and Negative Magic to 239/1000, leaving 2 Skill points.

'Combat. At over 200, there aren't many people who can even keep up with you, let alone beat you. Resilience. At over 200, it takes a blow that would kill a normal person to even hurt you. Blade-wielding. At over 200, you aren't quite at Mihawk's level, but you're getting there. Positive Magic. At over 200, you can decipher anything involving positive magic or positive spiritual energy in seconds. Negative Magic. At over 200, you can decipher anything involving negative magic or negative spiritual energy in seconds.'

She went out to the Avatars, and found several new ones unlocked. The first one had her pair of holy swords, and a slightly demented grin.

'Hellsing Twilight. This version of Twilight works for the Hellsing Organization, hunting down vampires and other such night terrors. She works on anything Alucard isn't around to deal with. Whether this is because he's on a mission or not doesn't really matter. She joined the Hellsing Organization after ALucard rescued her from a vampire and his ghouls. Ghouls are basically zombies under the control of the vampire that turned the ghouls, or at least, turned the ghouls who turned them. Vampires will turn humans into ghouls through their bite if the humans in question are not virgins. If the human is a virgin, then they will become a vampire as well. Unlocked by fighting a high-level vampire. Unlocked by possessing at least one holy blade. Swordsmare prerequisite.'

The next wore a dark purple outfit, and appeared to be in the middle of twirling a kunai by one finger.

'Ninja Twilight. This version of Twilight was born in Konohagurke. Orphaned in the Kyuubi attack, she joined the ninja academy to help her friend Naruto, who was mistreated by the villagers for some reason. It's suspicious how it gets worse around his birthday, which is coincidentally the anniversary of the Kyuubi attack. Must have fought a ninja to unlock. Need at least on shuriken or kunai to unlock.'

The next had a bandanna and a sword around her waist, and a pistol in one hand.

'Strawhat Pirate Twilight. This version of Twilight encountered Luffy while living on the prehistoric island of Little Garden. She'd been shipwrecked there, and his ship was the first one that came by. She also came along because she wanted to join in on the adventure. Must have fought a pirate to unlock. Swordsmare prerequisite.'

The next had a sword, but appeared to be an normal version of her human self otherwise.

'Shibusen Twilight. This version is a member of the DWMA, and is one of the few witches that has sided with Lord Death in the struggle between them. The DWMA hunts down threats to the souls of the world. Kishin Eggs, who kill humans and devour their souls, and witches, who are responsible for creating many Kishin Eggs through their immoral experiments and plots. Lord Death himself is unable to leave Death City because he used his own soul to anchor a seal on the original Kishin. Requires that you have fought a scythe-wielder. Swordsmare prerequisite.'

The last new one was wearing a training outfit, and had a small grin plastered on her face.

'Dragon Ball Twilight. This version is from the planet Earth, the version with the 7 orbs that when gathered together grant any three wishes, except wishing someone back who you already wished back. She meets Goku not long after Bulma, and joins him on his quest to find the Dragon Balls. Mostly to keep him from getting himself killed doing something stupid. She doesn't really have a wish. Requires that you be at least level 25, and have fought a bare-handed opponent.'

She looked over the Avatars she hadn't tried yet, and went with Kingdom Hearts Twilight on a hunch that there'd be multiple giant creatures to deal with there.

AN:

Sorry I took so long, but here's the next chapter for you. You guys said she was overpowered, and here's more evidence! Yeah, I made an arena for her, but I justify it like this: The game is ultimately trying to help her, but likes to mess with her. Kind of like Alucard in the Hellsing Organization, but less psychotic. This means that she literally has the universe on her side. So she tends to get convenient little things like this when she wants/needs them.  
Alucard was at his Level 5 seal, and only had that first gun, besides which, vampires, like all undead and demonic creatures, are vulnerable to holy weapons, and she has two. Luffy gave her more of a challenge because he had that (at this point) overpowered attack, and she was only using blunt-sided attacks unless stated otherwise. Frankly I think a number of things in the world of One Piece are BROKEN. Then something game-changing happens, and you're back at square one. Also, the opponents themselves were Bosses, she was awarded the Exp/Bits and Skill points for defeating them, not because of the Crossover Battles themselves. Were she to fight the same stage of the opponent again, she'd earn nothing. Next chapter will start Kingdom Hearts. That's right, I'm doing Kingdom Hearts as a whole thing instead of just a short summary.


	15. Dive To The Heart

AN: Right, I'll be having any inner dialogue just in 'parentheses' and the game speaking [b]bolded.[/b]

After she selected the Avatar, Twilight found herself in free-fall in a black void. She was also in human form and upside-down. This gave her a pretty good view of the pillar of stained-glass beneath her. She wasn't too concerned about the landing. With her high Resilience and Vit, damage from the impact would be little to none.

When she got within twenty feet of the pillar, she abruptly began to slow down by quite a bit. She landed on the pillar with almost no force, as if gravity had been counteracted. This place felt like it was a dream and yet not, so she was going to take what she saw and felt here with a grain of salt.

The pillar depicted herself in her current form asleep, surrounded by a black space filled with ones and zeroes. On the rim of the circular pillar, there were circles filled with friends and family members. Her friends and family from her Basic/Advanced version of Equestria, some of those she'd fought beside in the Paladin Avatar universe, the Knights of the Round Table, including Arthur, Merlin, and Guinevere, as well as those she'd fought in the Crossover Battles.

As if sensing that she'd finished examining the pillar, an almost unearthly voice began to speak. 'So much to do... So little time... Take your time... don't be afraid .'

Three stone platforms with ornate carvings rose out of the pillar at the cardinal directions of north east and west. A trio of strange, dog-sized black creatures appeared behind each of the platform.

Since each platform was at the edge of the pillar, these black creatures were standing on absolutely nothing. She did her best to take this in stride.

A sword appeared on the leftmost pillar, a simple broadsword with an odd green symbol on the hand guard, Two small circles attached to a larger one. It made her think of a mouse for some reason.

A shield appeared on the pillar directly in front of her. It was dark red and had a black version of the symbol on it. The rightmost pillar remained empty.

'Hm, the power sleeping within you has already been given partial form. Complete it, and it will grant you strength. In order to do so, you must give up one of these. The sword represents the power of the warrior. Invincible courage. A sword of terrible destruction. The shield represents the power of the guardian. Kindness to aid friends. A shield to repel all, good or evil. Choose well.' the voice explained.

She thought it over carefully. She was certain this was very important. On one hand, she didn't like the sound of 'terrible destruction' but the sword was a better fit for her fighting style, and herself if she was being honest.

She had done plenty of saving, but not a lot of protecting. Swords weren't suited for protecting anything either. Oh, they could save, but only by removing the source of the problem. That decided, she walked over to the shield and picked it up.

'Are you sure you wish to give up the power of the guardian?' the voice asked.

With some reluctance, she nodded. The shield was consumed by shadows and the stone pillars cracked and sank back into the main pillar. A staff that had a figure head of the strange symbol, blue this time, appeared in her left hand, and the sword in her right.

The black creatures began to move towards her. Since her subspace pocket was being blocked, she couldn't use her trusted holy blades. Ah well, knowing her luck her attacks would phase right through these things if she'd tried that. Her magic wasn't being blocked, but it felt strange, so that was out until she could figure out what was up with it.

'There will be times when you must fight, but keep your light burning strong.' the voice said before things dissolved into a general melee. These might prove insurmountable to a normal person, but her Combat Skill alone, not to mention Blade-wielding, let her win with little trouble. The creatures were soon reduced to dark energy, before disappearing altogether.

They'd still been more of a challenge than they should have been. Things that only granted 1 Exp shouldn't be giving her any trouble in groups smaller than 100.

Before she could ponder further, three strange creatures appeared in a mixture of light and darkness. They were roughly her height, light gray full-body suits, and had neon highlights on said suits. Their limbs were branch-like, and they proved impossibly flexible as they approached. She could only assume that they did not possess skeletons, though that raised the question of how they supported themselves.

When they got within a few feet of her, their bodysuits' mouths unzipped, revealing sharp teeth. Unlike their shorter counterparts, these did not attack mindlessly. They tried to dodge her attacks and co-ordinate with each other. Once they'd dissolved into sparks of blue light upon their defeat, granting 6 Exp each, and an item that restored 40% of her HP with use called a Potion, she started to think all of this over.

That had been harder than it should have been, even disregarding the boost from her soul, that should have been boringly easy, but they were actually able to slow her down in such small numbers. The game chose that moment to speak up.

[b]'You've been afflicted by the Status effect Suppressed Darkness. You are subconsciously suppressing your inner darkness and the effort of this is blocking your full abilities. 75% reduction to all Stats. HP, MP, and Sub-Stats not affected. Can be removed temporarily in Anti-Form, and permanently by learning to control your inner darkness.'[/b]

She stared. 75%?! She was practically back to square one! Once she calmed down a little, she realized that the game had actually told her how to remove the status effect. It had told her how to cause the status effect after the fact, but never how to remove them.

This time, the mysterious voice addressed her. 'Your Darkness is strong, and draining much of your strength to resist it. You may regain your former strength and more if you learn to control it. Be warned, however, those shadows are known as Heartless, and those white creatures have named themselves Nobodies. That is the fate of those who fall prey to Darkness. Anger, Hatred, Fear, Despair, Bitterness, Jealousy, Greed, Power Lust, Pride, Insanity, Loneliness... any and all negative emotions lead to Darkness. If you don't keep it under control, it will control you. ...Although pure light can be just as bad.'

A door appeared in the center of the platform. It was a plain wooden one, but had an air of great importance. 'Beyond this door more Heartless and Nobodies await, as well as a final challenge. You will not be able to turn back once you go through this door. Are you certain you wish to continue?' the voice asked.

She nodded, and the door opened on it's own. She was momentarily blinded by light, and when it faded, she found herself on a new platform. There was no door behind her, so she had to move forward. She examined the pillar for a moment. It depicted a boy in a red hoodie and shorts, with brown hair that was spiky to the point of being gravity-defying, and a pair of huge yellow shoes. There were four circles around his head. A boy with silver hair, a girl with red hair, and two more that appeared to be a dog with a green hat and a duck with a blue hat.

She also had a look at what the Bestiary had to say about the two new types of enemies.

'Shadow. One of the most basic Heartless, though not the weakest. Shadows live up to their name, emerging from the ground to attack with a simple but fierce claw strike. Although the Shadow is relatively easy to defeat when alone, its habit of attacking in swarms can make it too much to handle. Though they are invincible while flattened on the ground, they cannot attack you either, and are vulnerable in the moment they become fully three-dimensional.

'Dusk. The most common form of Nobody. Dusks are fairly weak and require little strategy, but can be a bit troublesome in large groups especially when paired with the Creeper Nobody. They are easily confused by their target making a sudden sharp turn. Like all Nobodies, they are momentarily stunned if their attacks are blocked.'

She closed the Bestiary, nodding. She took a step forward, and was surrounded by an equal number of shadows and Dusks. They had a replacement each time she took one down, until she'd defeated 10 of each. The Shadows proved little more than annoyances, but all these Dusks were keeping her from doing any significant damage to any of their number.

Eventually, she slashed one with an attack from her staff and sword at the same time, making an x-shaped slash mark. It disintegrated into sparks of blue light, and the situation only deteriorated from there for the Nobodies. After that, a series of platforms made of stained-glass appeared to let her reach the next pillar, which was somewhat higher.

There had actually been three pillars the whole time, but she'd had no way of reaching them as she had no chance of jumping that high with her Str. cut by so much, and her magic being blocked meant no teleportation. This was no longer the case.

She moved to the next pillar. It depicted a baker's dozen figures in black coats with the hoods drawn, black gloves, and black boots. There were Dusks in the background. This time, 20 Dusks and 10 Shadows showed up. With more experience with her opponents fighting style, she had slightly less difficulty here than with the previous fight.

When she'd finished with this pillar, she moved on to the next one. This one depicted a barren wasteland with key-shaped swords stuck into the ground. There were pillars of earth reaching into the sky, and a giant blue heart-shaped moon shining down on it all. On the far edge of the pillar, there was another door like the one that had gotten her here. This time there were only ten Dusks, and 30 Shadows.

After she took care of them, she moved over to the door. When she opened it , she was once again blinded by light, and on a pillar that was half a bright yellow that gave a warm impression, and half an inky black that seemed to be trying to consume the light.

The voice piped up. 'You may fear the Darkness, but do not run from it.' Her own shadow pulled itself into the 3-dimensional world. It's eyes were identical to the Shadows' and it possessed a shadowy black version of both her staff and sword. It rushed her so fast her eyes could barely follow it, and smashed into her guard, almost breaking through. It was definitely stronger and faster than her. 'The closer you get o the light, the greater your shadow becomes. But don't forget-' he voice cut off as her shadow rushed her again. She was barely able to block or dodge, let alone counter.

She had 8 Potions at this point, so she might be able to win a battle of attrition. She began to make sacrificial moves. It seemed to be working. Her opponent had 1000 HP at the start of their confrontation, but Twilight soon halved that, and only needed 2 Potions. However, as soon as it's HP dipped below 500, a dark aura flared up around it, and it's speed and strength doubled.

She could barely keep up, and started to take damage like crazy. She was barely able to beat the last 100 HP out of it without using her last Potion, getting a measly 100 Exp for her trouble. Unfortunately, as soon as it's HP hit zero, it dissolved into dark ooze that began sucking her downward, and she couldn't get back any lost ground. 'But don't be afraid.' the voice sounded shaky, as if disturbed by what was happening. 'Your heart is the mightiest weapon of all. And don't forget...' she had sunk up to her chin at this point, and her struggles were barely slowing the muck down. '... light and darkness are two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other.' Darkness swallowed her.

[center]***[/center]

She sat bolt upright as she awoke. After quickly making sure she still possessed all her body parts and that they were in working order, she looked around the room she was in. It was orange. No, that wasn't quite right. It was the color of the sky in the summer during sunset. She grinned at that little irony. The bed she was currently in was the only furniture in the room, and even it was Spartan despite it's surprising comfort.

She turned to the sound of the door opening, as a rather tall man with a blue pointed hat with stars and crescent moons on it, a grey beard, and blue robes that practically screamed 'wizard' came in.

"Ah, I see you are awake." he said, his seemingly default severe expression turning into a smile. "Allow me to introduce myself. I do not expect it to mean anything to you, but my name is Yen Sid." the man said.

Twilight knew only what the Avatar's description had told her about Yen Sid, which was to say, next to nothing. "I'm Twilight Sparkle. Could you tell me where I am? The last thing I remember clearly before waking up here was an odd dream." Twilight said. She was certain that dream had been very important, but she wasn't sure how. The Avatar's description had mentioned Yen Sid being her teacher, so she could probably trust him.

"You are inside my tower. I had to make this room as the tower is not exactly used to accommodating guests for any lengthy period of time. The last was my former apprentice Mickey, and that was more than a decade ago." Yen Sid explained.

Twilight thought this over for a moment. Well, if he'd made the room, then that implied a great deal of magic involved as this room certainly didn't look new and Yen Sid was pretty much the archetype of wizards. That, or he was stupidly good at altering how space worked. Maybe some of both.

"If you do not mind, may I ask if you heard a strange voice you could not place or saw living shadows in your dream?" Yen Sid asked.

Twilight blinked. How did he know that? "Yes, there were gray things called Nobodies too. I had to fight my own shadow right at the end."

Yen Sid straightened at that. "I would appreciate it if you went into detail. It may be important." he said.

Twilight had no reason to mistrust him, so she described the odd dream as best she could. Minus the contributions from The Game of course. Yen Sid asked for more details on occasion, but didn't interrupt beyond that.

"From the sound of it, you experienced a Dive to the Heart, or Deep Dive. It's a manifestation of the heart that appears when something of importance to your heart specifically occurs. I do not speak of the physical heart, though there is a connection. Rather, I refer to the metaphysical heart which holds your memories and is the source of your emotions. From the sound of it, you experienced a trial that the Keyblade puts it's potential wielders through in order to determine their worth."

"Keyblade?" she asked.

"An ancient and powerful weapon that can be used to lock or unlock almost any lock. As you can imagine, this implies a great deal of responsibility on it's own. However, it is also one of the only weapons that can permanently harm the Heartless and Nobodies, both of whom cause much chaos and bedlam. Only those bearing a Keyblade and their allies can fight effectively against either of them.

We are the only ones with the means to safeguard the many worlds, and so, we have little choice but to do so. It would appear you are the newest addition to our ranks." Yen Sid explained.

"Let me guess. I have no say in the matter. It'll stick with me whether I like it or not." Twilight deadpanned. As if taking offense, a key-shaped sword appeared in her right hand in a mixture of points of light and a cloud of darkness. It had her element for teeth, connected between two of the spikes to a dark blue shaft that led to a square guard formed out of what looked like sheets of paper folded over each other. The handle was a normal white cylinder. The keychain was the stone orb that the element of magic had been when she first encountered it. It was about four and a half feet long. The name [i]Hidden Star[/i] popped into her head.

She held it in front of her. "Am I paranoid or was it just spiteful?" Twilight asked.

Yen Sid stroked his beard for a moment. "Keyblades have demonstrated that they each possess a will and they are closely tied to the hearts of their bearers. It is not impossible that they can also feel emotion." he said.

"Ah." she addressed her new weapon. "Sorry about that." If she was stuck with this thing, she might as well be polite. She turned back to Yen Sid. "You seem to know a lot about the Keyblade. Would you be willing to teach me? I'd like to be able to summon Hidden Star when I want to, and not whenever it feels like showing up. Plus, I'm going to have to help out with the Heartless and Nobodies at some point." Twilight said.

"I see. Well, you need to concentrate on your heart in order to summon it, and to dismiss it. Though it will disappear on it's own if you lose consciousness."

'Chapter Progress: 0 quests completed. 0 stars found. 1480 Exp to next level.


	16. Setting Out With Sora

Twilight had become Yen Sid's student, and a devoted one. She did her best to learn all he taught her. Luckily, since the Keyblade was a blade of sorts, though they tended not to inflict visible physical damage being weapons of the heart, it fell under blade-wielding. This meant that she lost none of the skill that she had possessed. However, she was having problems in other areas.

Her inner Darkness made using Negative Magic in any form impossible, cutting off a great deal of power. Even Positive Magic caused it to at least stir. What's more, she had to fight it every step of the way if her darker emotions started to surface. If she got a little annoyed, it tried to leak out. If she got frustrated, it tried to force it's way out. If she got angry or afraid, it started to try and push it's way out.

Her practice with her Keyblade and the Darkness in her heart attracted some of the weaker varieties of Heartless, Shadows and Soldiers. Soldiers had some silvery armor, red claws, a body that was overall dark blue, and an emblem in the center of their chest that resembled a heart that had been crossed-out.

'The Soldier's name references soldiers serving the military. This highlights the Heartless's battle capabilities, close melee fighting and basic blocking. They also appear in large numbers, though their cooperation is lacking. Their spinning attacks are much more powerful than their basic kicks and clawed strikes, and more difficult to avoid or block.'

They awarded Exp and Munny, which translated back and forth from Bits like the other currencies, but she felt bad about drawing Heartless to Yen Sid's tower. Yen Sid wasn't used to handling an apprentice with a great deal of Darkness in their heart, but did his best. She thought she heard him mention something about there not being anyone else to teach her once.

She also heard about Sora. He was another Keyblade wielder and he'd already saved the World by closing the Door To Darkness and stopping the Heartless from invading the Realm of Light. He'd driven much of the Darkness in the Realm of Light back by defeating the leader of the Heartless. A sentient Heartless named Ansem, who had once been the ruler of the world of Hollow Bastion.

The World as a whole had been divided in the aftermath of the Keyblade War, a struggle between Keyblade wielders over Kingdom Hearts, the source of all Light and all hearts. There was the Realm of Light, the Realm of Darkness, and the Realm In-Between.

The realms of Light and Darkness were almost entirely their namesake, while the Realm In-Between was fairly even, though it leaned depending on whether the specific world was closer to Light or Darkness. The Realm In-Between was also the border between the other two.

She had been doing some research in the library Yen Sid possessed, and kept coming back to a conclusion that seemed almost insane at first glance. There was an imbalance in the amount of Light and Darkness that favored the Light. While they were equal at first glance, and despite the efforts of the Heartless, Light was still the dominant force.

When she asked Yen Sid about it, he had stroked his beard for a full minute before responding. "People as a whole have a deep fear of the Darkness, and it takes time for Darkness to gather in any great amount in one's heart if it is feared and mistrusted. Not only that, but Darkness is regularly driven back from the Realm of Light.

It might seem that Darkness is very strong, but it is actually only half as strong or prevalent as a balanced World would require. What most fail to understand is that neither Light nor Darkness is fundamentally good or evil. Either one can be used for either, depending on the user. What's more, they balance and check each other. Too much Light is no better than too much Darkness. I'm honestly surprised that a counterpart to the Heartless hasn't emerged from a heart that gave itself to the Light." he explained.

After that, Twilight took a good long look at her own Darkness and thought that perhaps she'd been too eager to mistrust it. She'd have to be careful of course, but she shouldn't try to deny it completely. Light and Darkness were supposed to each be half of everything. To deny one was to deny half of reality.

With a lot of help from Yen Sid, she managed to cast Dark Firaga without having her inner Darkness try to use the spell to attack everything. Now that she thought about it, that was probably because of the sheer prevalence of Light relative to Darkness. It was trying to bring everything back in balance.

She also felt a bit less like a ticking time bomb after letting out a little Darkness. Perhaps it had realized she had accepted that it was there to stay, and no longer felt threatened? Or maybe that had caused the buildup to fall off. Whatever the case, she could use magic more freely again, and had learned the Fire and Thunder spells when an abnormally large wave of Heartless invaded the tower. After she cleared out the top floor, Yen Sid sent her downstairs to clear out the rest. He said there was some people down there she ought to meet.

She fought her way down to the crescent moon chamber, and discovered Sora, Donald, and Goofy, just as they finished off a group of Soldiers and Shadows. She recognized them from the descriptions Yen Sid had given when he told her about them.

"Heartless! Heartless! Heartless! Nothing's changed one bit!" the duck, Donald, huffed. His voice was a bit distorted by his mouth not being properly shaped for human speech, and/or a lack of teeth. He wore a dark blue hat with a zipper, and a blue shirt that had a large number of pouches and zippers. He did not have pants or shoes.

"So the worlds aren't at peace after all?" Sora asked. He looked just like the picture of him on the platform just beyond that first door in her Deep Dive. This time, however, she was able to see that his eyes were a bright blue.

"I'm afraid not, things have improved though." Twilight said, stepping into the room.

"Guess it's a good thing we're on the job then, but uh, who're you?" the dog, Goofy asked. He had an orange hat with pilot goggles, a gray jacket with green sleeves, a pair of orange pants that matched his hat, and long thin shoes.

"I'm Master Yen Sid's apprentice, Twilight." she summoned her [i]Hidden Star[/i] to show them.

"Woah! You've got a Keybalde too?" Sora asked, excited.

"Yeah, but I can tell you all about it later." Twilight dismissed her Keyblade to avoid attracting any Heartless. \

"Master Yen Sid is waiting for us up the next flight of stairs." she half-turned and said. "Come on!"

The adventurers trailed behind her. They opened the door to Yen Sid's study. Donald and Goofy stood at attention in front of his desk while saluting. Twilight just stood at attention. Sora had his hands above his head and looked sort of confused when the others bowed.

"Master Yen Sid, I brought your guests." Twilight said, before straightening.

"Master Yen Sid, it's an honor." Donald said, he and Goofy still bowing.

Twilight felt her eye twitch when Sora raised a hand in greeting and gave a casual, "Hey there."

"Sora! Show some respect!" Donald scolded, scandalized.

Yen Sid waved it off. "Sora, I've been expecting you. Have you seen the King yet?" he asked.

"Yes we did, Master. But we didn't get the chance to talk to him." Goofy answered.

Yen Sid nodded. "Yes. The King has been quite busy of late. Therefore, it seems it falls upon my shoulders to instruct you in the task at hand. You have a perilous journey ahead of you. You will need to be well-prepared." he explained.

"You mean... we have to go on another quest?" Sora asked hesitantly. "I was looking forward to finding my friend Riku. So we could go back to the islands." Sora said, Twilight noticed he seemed to gesture with his hands a lot, it didn't seem to be conscious either.

She did feel for him. She wasn't loving the thought that of being blocked from seeing her friends. She could, technically, visit them at anytime, so she wasn't too bothered by the long periods without. It wasn't as though they were dead or anything. ...When did she get so morbid? She cut off her train of thought as Yen Sid responded.

"Yes. I know. However, everything in your journey is connected, Sora. Whether you will find your way back to the islands... Whether you will find your friend or return alone... And whether or not the islands will still be there when you return. The key connecting them all is you, Sora." Yen Sid said. He was much like how she had always imagined Starswirl the Bearded in how he spoke. Wise, but a bit roundabout.

"I'm... the key?" Sora asked. He closed his eyes, stretched out a hand, and concentrated for a moment. His Keyblade appeared in a burst of light. It had a grey shaft and teeth, which were crown-shaped. It's guard was golden and square-shaped, and the keychain was a mouse-head symbol, the symbol common to the weapons in her Deep Dive.

"Chosen wielder of the Keyblade! You are the one who will open the door to Light." Yen Sid proclaimed. Sora, Donald, Goofy, and herself stood at attention again. "There is one favor I would like to ask you. You must have been wondering who Twilight is and why she has joined us. She is my apprentice and a Keyblade wielder like yourself. She is also a reluctant wielder of Darkness.

I would like her to accompany you on your journey. You will need as much help as you can get, and it is often on journeys such as this that one learns to properly wield the powers of their heart. Do you all find that acceptable?" Yen Sid asked.

"Sure." Sora said. Neither Donald nor Goofy had any objections.

"I'd like to go." Twilight agreed.

"Very well." Yen Sid waved a hand and a yellow book with a crescent moon on the front cover appeared in a puff of blue smoke. "This book contains valuable knowledge that will aid you in your journey, I would advise you all to study it carefully." he said, levitating it over to them with a few more hand gestures. "Once you have finished, we will speak of the enemies you will surely confront as you travel among the worlds." he said.

The book was filled with what almost seemed like prophecies. After they'd finished reading, Sora asked, "But,how come the Heartless are still running around? We stopped them from escaping the Realm of Darkness, right?"

"Your efforts did prevent an immense effusion of Heartless from the great Darkness, make no mistake about that. Unfortunately, the Heartless are Darkness itself made real, and Darkness lingers in almost every heart. Their numbers are fewer, but so long as Darkness exists in a single heart, it will be almost impossible to eliminate them." Yen Sid explained. Sora, Donald, and Goofy slumped at this news.

Goofy thumped one hand into the other. "Gawrsh, that must mean that if everybody's heart was full of light, then them Heartless'd go away!" Goofy said, causing the other two original party members to perk up. Twilight frowned, not only was that unlikely since they were talking about every heart in every living thing all across the universe, but there was a high chance that hearts utterly lacking in Darkness would be unstable. She didn't like the potential consequences of unstable hearts.

Yen Sid nodded. "Now it is time to speak of the foes you will face." He waved a hand and an illusion of Donald appeared, it was consumed by illusory shadows, and a Shadow stood in it's place, twitching much like a real one. "If one such as you, Donald, yields to their inner Darkness, they will become one of the Heartless. This you already know. The Heartless are ever lurking in search of new hearts to drag into Darkness. You must never let your guard down. " He explained.

Donald groaned at being used as an example. "Now then..." he waved a hand and an illusory Dusk appeared. "At times, if one in possession of a strong heart and will, becomes a Heartless, they leave behind their body and soul. This empty shell develops a will and begins to act on it's own." No longer serving a purpose, the Shadow illusion disappeared. "An empty vessel that has lost it's heart to Darkness, a spirit that goes on, even as the body begins to fade away. You see, Nobodies do not truly exist at all. They may seem to have feelings, but this is nothing more than a ruse, they cannot feel anything as they do not have hearts. You must not be deceived!" Yen Sid explained.

"Nobodies... they don't exist." Sora said quietly. You could tell he was feeling bad for the Nobodies.

The Dusk illusion was joined by two identical illusions. "The being you see before you is known as a Dusk, they are the most common form of Nobody. There are others, however, some larger, some with frightening and unique powers. Be vigilant!" Yen Sid warned.

"On your journey you will meet an alarming number of Dusks. They will all attempt to do you harm." The Dusks disappeared, as if to emphasize Yen Sid's next words. "Still, they are nothing more than empty shells destined to return to Darkness." Three illusory figures in black cloaks, gloves, and boots appeared. Their faces were obscured by shadows, basically they were what was in mind when the words 'shady' and 'character' were coined.

The original trio were visibly wary of these figures, as if they'd seen these people before. "The Nobodies before you are different. They have retained their human forms and intellects and formed Organization XIII. They command the lesser Nobodies." Yen Sid explained.

"Organization XIII..." Sora said, an odd expression on his face, as if he had heard something familiar but couldn't place it. He turned to Donald and Goofy in turn, both of whom shook their heads in negative, though Donald had thought a few moments before doing so.

He then turned to Twilight. "Nope, sorry. I don't know any more than you do on this subject." Twilight responded to the unspoken question.

"While normal Heartless act on instinct, even the least of the Nobodies function in a higher manner. They can think and plan, and they appear to be working towards a goal. Unfortunately, we do not know what their goal is. The King sensed the threat they posed however, and journeyed forth to combat it. He found the Dark Realm's Keyblade, and with it, closed the door. Now he is travelling the worlds, fighting the Heartless, and seeking the answer to the riddle of Organization XIII and the Nobodies." Yen Sid explained as the illusions disappeared.

"Then I guess we need to find the King first." Sora said decisively.

"But where could he be?" Donald asked, worried.

"Well, I guess we won't know 'til we look!" Goofy said.

"Well, if he's searching for information on the Organization, then we can assume we'll encounter their forces as we look for him, or vice versa. Two birds with one stone." Twilight commented.

Sora nodded. "Yeah, and since Riku and the King were together in the Realm of Darkness when we closed the door after we beat Ansem, he must know where Riku is." he said.

"First, you will need more suitable traveling clothes. Sora's look a bit too small, and Twilight's could use a tune-up." Yen Sid gestured to the door on his left. "In there, you will find three good fairies. They will provide you with more appropriate garments if you ask." Yen Sid said.

"Gawrsh Sora, you sure are growing fast." Goofy said after a moment's examination.

"Yeah, I guess." Sora said, looking over his clothes before chuckling sheepishly and rubbing his head.

Twilight was puzzled. "Don't you guys know?" she asked.

"Know what?" Sora asked.

"You've all been missing for a year. It only makes sense that Sora grew." Twilight explained.

"A YEAR!? Daisy's going to kill me!" Donald exclaimed.

"Hm, that explains some things." Goofy said, scratching his head.

They went over to the door Yen Sid had indicated. Yen Sid pinched the bridge of his nose as soon as they had gone through. This was a bit of a gamble, allowing Twilight to receive the Drive Forms alongside Sora. She would most assuredly end up in Anti-Form more often than not. This ran the risk of her succumbing to Darkness, but you couldn't run from your own heart, and Darkness was not something you could simply ignore.

If this paid off, then she would confront her Darkness head on and defeat it. He supposed the chances were 60/40 in favor of a positive outcome, but that was still more of a risk than he was comfortable with considering what was at stake. Unfortunately, he had few alternatives.

Keyblade Masters were all but extinct, and Masters with enough experience with Darkness to prevent someone whose heart was steeped in Darkness from either being consumed or seduced were rarer still. This was the method with a highest chance of success.

Sora and co found themselves in a dressing room. Where three figures appeared to be arguing about something. They all had a conical hat with some fabric wrapped around it, a cape and they each wore a dress that reached to her feet and there were wings sticking out of their backs which were tinted. Other than their hair color, and the color their clothes and wings were, they were almost identical from behind. The one on the left had grey hair and green clothes, the one in the middle wore red and had grey hair as well, and the one on the right had blue clothing and black hair.

"Me, you guys, Twilight, Riku, and the King. I don't care who this organization is, or what it's planning. With the six of us, I mean, seven of us, there's nothing to worry about." Sora said. This once again had Twilight puzzled. Who was the seventh person? Ah well, maybe Sora meant their chronicler. She blinked. Had she just [i]assumed[/i] Sora had a chronicler? Maybe she had spent a little too much time as Arthurian.

"Well look who's here dears. Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Twilight." the one in red said. "I'm Flora." she gestured to the one in blue. "This is Fauna." she gestured to the one in green. "This is Merryweather." Fauna introduced the three of them.

"Oh, if you've come looking for clothes, you've come to the right place." Fauna said as she and Flora approached.

Merryweather hung back, saying, "I'll do the designing."

Flora and Fauna led Sora a few feet towards Merryweather.

Merryweather waved her wand and sent a spark of green magic towards Sora, which turned his outfit various shades of green. Sora stared at his clothes in shock.

"Oh, that will never do!" Fauna said as she sent a spark of blue magic at Sora, turning his outfit blue. Sora continued to stare as his outfit's color scheme was changed over and over while the three fairies bickered, his expression slowly metamorphosing into one of exasperation.

After the tenth color change, Twilight leaned over to Donald and Goofy and asked, "Should we do something?"

"Like what? I'm sure that Master Yen Sid wouldn't send us to get clothes from them if they couldn't work together." Donald said.

Twilight nodded doubtfully as she watched Sora's outfit continue changing color. It flashed between blue, red, and green mostly, but yellow, orange and purple appeared on occasion.

[center]Meanwhile in Villian's Vale in Hollow Bastion[/center]

A large fat cat in a blue suit of armor was looking for the witch Maleficent, his superior in their world-conquering enterprise. "Maleficent! You here?" he called. He examined the room he was in. This could barely be considered a castle, and this place wasn't well-furnished by any stretch of the imagination.

"This wasn't what I was expecting for a castle. It ain't got nothing. Maybe they really did finish her off. Oh, now what am I supposed to do?" Pete asked, just then a raven who's caw he found oddly familiar squawked. He did a double-take as he realized where he'd seen it before, a moment after he found it with his eyes, and had the accompanying realization of who it belonged to.

[center]Meanwhile Back with Sora and co. Roughly 5 Minutes After the Previous Scene[/center]

"Can you just decide?" Sora said in exasperation, his patience finally haven given up the ghost.

Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather stopped and chuckled sheepishly. "Alright, together now dears, and no more squabbling." Flora said as the three of them raised their wands and sent a spark of magic each, which merged into a relatively large golden one before reaching Sora and causing a bright light to temporarily obscure him.

When it faded, Sora's outfit had completely changed. His shoes were now black with yellow backs and necks. He also had a pair of baggy black shorts, a red and blue shirt, and a hooded black and grey jacket with a hood. There were an unusually high number of straps on it, of varying colors.

"Oh my..." Flora said in awe.

"Ooh, it's lovely!" Merryweather complimented.

"He does look dashing!" Fauna agreed. Sora's Keyblade appeared of it's own accord.

"Now those aren't ordinary garments." Flora began.

"They have very special powers." Merryweather continued. Flora conjured up an orange orb with a white vortex inside it. "Take the orb dear." Merryweather continued. Sora did so, and the orb was absorbed into him the moment he made contact.

"And watch what happens!" Fauna said, a moment before Sora was lifted into the air, momentarily surrounded by an orb of hexagons which swiftly broke apart. Light was absorbed into Sora's body, until it briefly obscured him again.

This time when it faded, his clothes had turned predominantly red, and in addition to his original Keyblade, he was wielding a second one. It had a star inside of a crescent moon for teeth, had a blue shaft with stars on it, angel's wings forming a circular guard, a black handle, and a crescent moon key-chain. The name [i]Starseeker[/i] popped into their heads.

"Wow!" Donald said, awed.

"Two Keyblades!" Goofy said, hefting one hand after the other in quick succession to emphasize his words.

"I didn't know you [i]could[/i] use two Keyblades, magic clothes or no." Twilight threw her two cents in. It was supposed to be impossible to wield to, but what did she know?

"Yes, but there's a downside." Flora began, drawing their attention back to her. "Under normal circumstances, that particular Drive, we call it Valor Form, would leave Goofy to drained to fight until it wore off. This Form enhances your physical abilities. You're able to jump higher, run faster, and hit harder. You can unlock other Forms with different powers, but the other Forms would have similar requirements and you'll have to discover them on your own." she explained.

"Those clothes are almost indestructible and boost how quickly your magic recovers too. This journey's going to be twice as difficult as your last." Fauna added.

Sora sighed. "Alright, I'll do my best, and thanks a lot." he said gratefully.

Fauna turned to Twilight. "Alright, it's your turn."

Twilight and Sora switched places, her Keyblade appearing. Twilight's outfit was quite a bit different from Sora's. Her original clothes remained, with a few differences, but she got an unzipped overcoat over them. It was silver with the elements of harmony's forms imprinted on it in black. It had a hood as well. The fringes were formed of blue ones and zeroes.

"Well now, that's something!" Flora said.

'Fairie Garment equipped. -10 to all incoming damage. MP regeneration boosted by 60.'

Twilight examined the Garment more closely. Did the person the clothes were for influence how they appeared? The fairies had seemed surprised at both Sora's clothes, and her own. Perhaps they were altered according to the wearers heart.

Those straps on Sora's outfit could represent bonds, given the importance Sora gave his friends. The elements of harmony's shadows and ones and zeroes were fairly obvious. Odd that the more honest and straight-forward of the two of them got the more symbolic outfit, while she got the blatantly obvious one.

She was broken from her musings by Flora waving her wand and making another orb appear. Twilight took it without prompting. However, she, unlike Sora, was consumed by shadows, to the gasps of those present. When they faded, Twilight resembled a humanoid Shadow. Her features were (just barely) still discernible, but she was an inky black with golden-yellow eyes which lacked pupils or whites. Her Keyblade was gone, and she had clawed hands.

[b]"What on earth?! What happened?! Please tell me this isn't permanent! And why is my voice echoing?"[/b] Twilight said, her voice echoing creepily.

"I'm sorry, that's Anti-Form. It's not supposed to happen, but sometimes the Drive gets hijacked by your inner Darkness. It only happens with any frequency to those with a great deal of Darkness in their hearts or previous experience with it." Flora apologized.

[b]"You still haven't told me what, precisely this is."[/b] Twilight said, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. She kept waiting for her Darkness to try and take over, though it seemed content with being on the outside for the moment.

"It's called Anit-Form. It makes you unable to use anything but Darkness attacks and your, ahem, hands. You can warp short distances, and you can deal a lot of damage this way, but you're more vulnerable as well."

'Status: Anti-Form. All non-Darkness powers locked. all incoming and outgoing damage doubled.'

"Don't worry, your transformation should fade within a few seconds of Sora's. Luckily, you do seem to have unlocked Wisdom Form without any permanent problems. It leaves Donald drained, but boosts your magic to the point where you passively levitate a few inches off the ground." Flora explained.

At that moment, Sora reverted to normal, his clothes fading to their original colors and his second Keyblade disappearing. The black mist that had been faintly pouring off Twilight suddenly streamed off her and left her back to normal. Well, as normal as she ever got.

"I hope that's not going to be a regular thing, it was nerve-racking." Twilight said, rubbing her head.

"Well, there's something else for you from Master Yen Sid. Good luck!" Merryweather said.

The others weren't too bothered by Twilight's transformation since she didn't seem to be. Donald was excited by the prospect of something from Master Yen Sid himself. "Oh boy!"

They walked out of the dressing room, and discovered Master Yen Sid looking out a window in the shape of a crescent moon. He waved them over.

"Hey, it's the Gummi Ship!" Donald said.

"Yes, according to Chip and Dale, it followed your hearts here. It seems to have developed something of a will of it's own after all you've been through." Yen Sid explained.

"So, everybody ready to go?" Sora asked. They all nodded, then moved to stand at attention in a line facing Yen Sid.

"Now now, just a moment." he said, causing their postures to slump. "Due to the Heartless, the walls between the worlds were torn down, but because of the efforts of Sora, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, and Riku, those walls were restored and the pathways between have been closed off. This has helped lessen the number of Heartless and Nobodies that may enter a world at once, but it has also rendered travel using the Gummi Ship almost impossible." Yen Sid explained.

"So how are we supposed to get around?" Donald asked, slumping over further.

"You need not worry. If the King's suspicions prove correct, the worlds will have prepared new pathways for you. These paths may be utilized by unlocking special gates. I'm afraid I do not know the precise mechanism by which these gates are opened, but the Keyblade shall serve as your guide. When a beam of light emanates from one or both of your Keyblades, return to the Gummi Ship. Though the worlds may seem isolated, they remain connected by invisible ties nevertheless, very much like our hearts." Yen Sid explained.

"Our hearts are connected to each and every person we meet. We're all holding a little piece of each other in our hearts." Twilight said. She wasn't entirely sure where that had come from, but she was under the impression it had literally come from the heart.

Yen Sid smiled and nodded. "That is correct."

"Got it." Sora said.

"Be warned, however, as you proceed... the Heartless and Nobodies will be using their own paths, Corridors of Darkness, to travel from world to world. They may be attempting to link these dark paths to the gates between the worlds." Yen Sid warned them.

"Hey! That's not fair!" Donald complained.

"Since when do the bad guys play fair?" Twilight commented.

"Now then, that is all the information I can give to you. Go forth, Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Twilight. Everyone is waiting!" Yen Sid told them.

"Okay, let's go!" Sora said before standing at attention.

"Master Yen Sid!" Donald said before also standing at attention.

"Thanks for everything Master!" Twilight said before standing at attention as well.

"We sure do appreciate the help!" Goofy said before standing at attention too.

They all saluted before they turned and ran off to leave the tower and board the Gummi Ship. Twilight turned and waved at Yen Sid, who smiled and waved back before disappearing in blue light much like his illusions. Twilight followed the others outside.

[center]***Meabwhile With the Three Good Fairies***[/center]

"My goodness, what's that?!" Fauna exclaimed as a crow carrying a black cloak dropped it's load in front of the three fairies with a caw. Haven't we seen this somewhere before?" Fauna asked as they examined the cloak warily.

"Yes dear, I wonder whose it was?" Merryweather asked.

Fauna gasped. "Malef-" she covered her mouth.

"No, we mustn't remember her name. Oh dear." Flora said.

"She was a mean old witch. Oh no, the memories are coming back, what do we do?" Fauna asked as the cloak began to rise off the floor.

The three fairies gasped. They whispered worriedly among themselves for a few moments before Merryweather suggested. "Perhaps we should tell Master Yen Sid."

"Yes, that's what we must do. Hurry!" Fauna agreed.

The other two left immediately, but Flora paused at the door. That allowed her to witness Maleficent finishing her resurrection. "Maleficent!" she cried out in fear before hurrying after the others, disappearing in her color as they had.

Maleficent examined her surroundings, and began to chuckle, slowly, it developed into laughing evilly.

AN: For those of you who will complain, this Avatar will be important in the future. I didn't want to give her Darkness powers, a Keyblade, and a voice in her head without any real explanation.


	17. Character Sheet

Name : Twilight Sparkle

Title: Student of Magic/ The Gamer

Stats:

Str 73, Int 100: Per 23, Agi 85, Con 85, Will 71, Regen 105: Bat Con 28, Wis 69, Chr 71, Lck 69. HP 2045, Shd 50, MP 2447.

Skills:  
Combat. At over 200, there aren't many people who can even keep up with you, let alone beat you.

Resilience. At over 200, it takes a blow that would kill a normal person to even hurt you.

Blade-wielding. At over 200, you aren't quite at Mihawk's level, but you're getting there.

Positive Magic. At over 200, you can decipher anything involving positive magic or positive spiritual energy in seconds.

Negative Magic. At over 200, you can decipher anything involving negative magic or negative spiritual energy in seconds.

Efficient Spellcaster: 5/5. Each point in this skill reduces MP costs by 5%.

Magical Force. 1/1.10% more damage dealt to enemies by magic.

Magical Defense. 1/1. 10% less damage taken by magic.

Regenerator. 1/1. +10% to rate of regeneration.

Shield. 5/5. Shield that stops damage, any damage that exceeds the shield subtracts from the HP. Regeneration fixed at 1 point every 10 seconds. Investing points raises the shield's maximum value. Note, it appears as a small bar beneath HP.

Body Armour. 5/5. Blocks incoming damage, essentially the same as Resilience, but twice as effective.

Magic Copying. 5/5. Allows you to copy a spell performed in your view. Higher levels allow you to replicate a spell that you didn't see the entirety of.

Physically Tough. 10% reduction to damage from physical attacks. This is before the reduction from Resilience. 1/1.

Spiritually Tough. 10% reduction to damage from magical attacks. This is before reduction from Resilience. 1/1.

Drain. A portion of the damage you deal restores the damage dealt to you, 1% for each point invested. 10/10.

Shield Slicer. You can break through shields with a bladed object. Cost is proportional to strength of shield in relation to your attack. 1/1.

Invincible Shield. You can project a shield that is completely unbreakable for 100 MP, however, it will disappear after 10 seconds. 1/1.

Caster. You can cast two different spells in the same instant, or the same spell twice in one instant. 1/1.

Attack Attacker. You can use this once every day to cut the damage of one enemy in half. 1/1.

Mob Crusher. You gain a 10% boost to your abilities if you are facing more than three enemies at once. 1/1.

Resilient. Automatic subtraction of 10 damage from incoming attacks after reduction by Resilience. 1/1.

Magician. Automatic addition of 10 damage to spells of the Positive Magic type. 1/1.

Skilled Combatant. You are able to see a technique in a fight once and imitate it, if not perfectly. Though seeing the technique performed repeatedly makes it possible to copy it flawlessly. Adding points improves your ability to replicate the technique. 10/10.

Swordsman. You can adjust your style to fit the specific blade you're wielding. Invest points to reduce the inefficiencies that crop up. 10/10.

HP Boost 1. + 10 HP. Note that you can't get a higher-numbered boost before a lower numbered one. 1/1.

HP Boost 2. + 25 HP. 1/1.

HP Boost 3. + 50 HP. 1/1.

HP Boost 4. +100 HP. 1/1.

HP Boost 5. +250 HP. 1/1.

MP Boost 1. +10 MP. Note that you can't get a higher-numbered boost before a lower numbered one. 1/1.

MP Boost 2. +25 MP. 1/1.

MP Boost 3. +50 MP. 1/1.

MP Boost 4. +100 MP. 1/1.

MP Boost 5. +250 MP. 1/1.

Non-corrosive. Reduces the corruptive effects of negative magic by 10%. 1/1.

Close Combat. 1/1. For 10 MP, you can triple the damage you deal from direct physical attacks at the cost of doubling the physical attack damage you receive in return.

Mega Strength. 1/1. For 100 MP per attack, you can deal 100 damage in a direct physical attack, regardless of enemy defenses. However, this Skill disregards any bonuses from your Stats and other Skills.

One Mare Army 1/1. For 1000 MP, rain a series of lightning fast attacks on the enemy that are almost guaranteed to do over 1000 damage to each within ten feet of the main target.

Sword-play. 10/10. A skill that increases your skill with a sword a great deal more per point than Blade-wielding does, but doesn't transfer to all bladed weapons, just swords and knives. This includes kitchen knives and weapons that were carved into a sword-like shape.

Zantesuken. 1/1. A one-hit kill technique. It costs 1000 MP, has a one day cooldown period. It's inaccurate, unwieldy, and leaves you immobile for ten seconds afterward, so make sure it hits it's target.

Damage Reflection. 10/10. Reflects a small amount of the force used against you on the user, 1% per point, this skill does not come into effect unless there is physical contact, as such, most spells will not be reflected.

Lesser Force. 1/1. Quote, "If two forces come into conflict, the weaker one always comes away damaged." unquote. If the attack is completely neutralized by your Skills/Stats, the damage is sent back at the attacker. This only applies if the attack does zero damage to you.

Lead Body. 10/10. Your body is lead-hard, add points to increase your body's toughness further.

Avid Student. 1/1. Decreases the necessary time required to learn a spell, theory, or grasp another type of magic. This applies to all magic, positive, negative, light, dark, elemental, etc.

Positively Absorbent. 1/1. You absorb 5% of the MP used in a Positive Magic spell that hits you.

Negatively Absorbent. 1/1. You absorb 5% of the MP used in a Negative Magic spell that hits you.

Unpossessable. 137/1000. Heightens your resistance to outside influences. At a high enough level, 200 or so, you can shrug off possession by a high level demon like it was nothing. As it stands, only your Will Stat is in the way of that.

Enhancement. 20/1000. Allows you to enhance both your body and objects you are either in contact with, or are grasping with your magic by your skill level as a percent for 1 MP per second. 10/1000 would allow you to enhance something by 10% for example. WARNING! Attempting to enhance something beyond your current skill level will succeed, but will cause damage every second you keep something enhanced. It is also unimaginably painful to experience.

Perks:

Holy Might. Increases the effectiveness of holy weapons and items she used by 10%, and reduces their effectiveness against her by the same margin.

Unholy Might. Increases the effectiveness of unholy weapons and items she used by 10%, and reduces their effectiveness against her by the same margin.

Presence Concealment. Allows her to reduce her presence at will, down to the level that most people would take no more notice of her than a single blade of grass in a vast lawn.

Difficult To Kill. Attacks do reduced damage, even if they specifically targeted her weak points. Though the reduction was only 5%, that is enough to tip the scales if she was fighting someone she was closely matched with, like Discord.

Jack Of All Trades. She got a 1% boost to everything imaginable, from intelligence and attack power, to a reduction to damage done to her.

Vampire Hunter. Increases her effectiveness against the undead by 10%.

Not Gonna Die Tonight. Immediately restored 25% of her HP if it fell to 0, but only once a day.

My Crew. The perk increased her abilities by 5% for every other person fighting on her side, and by 10% if she was fighting to rescue someone she had close ties with.

Sound Soul. It increased her resistance to spiritual attacks and corruption by 10%./

Brawler. Increases her damage-dealing when fighting bare-handed by 10%, while lowering the damage done to herself by the same amount./p


	18. Meet the Restoration Committee

Twilight marveled at the inside of the Gummi Ship. Not only were the various gizmos and controls almost causing sensory overload since it was her first time seeing them, but she was fairly sure this thing was slightly bigger on the inside than the outside. Magic? Or a property of the Gummis, perhaps?  
"I have to say, this is very impressive. I wasn't expecting it to be quite so..." Twilight made an all-encompassing wave of her hands.  
"Don't worry, half of this stuff has nothing to do with flying the ship. Some of it makes food, is for transporting us to and from the various worlds, or repairs the ship when we're not traveling." Donald explained.  
"Oh, so that's what that stuff does. I wondered, but something always came up." Sora said. Twilight just barely resisted the urge to face-palm. He'd been riding around in a vehicle when he didn't know what half of it did? For a month or so? There was trusting and then there was naive.  
It was at that moment that a screen came to life in front of them. Two chipmunks appeared on it. While similar at first glance, the one on the left had a black nose and buck teeth which were next to each other, while the one on the right had a slightly larger red nose and his buck teeth were separated.  
"Hey guys!" black nose said, waving.  
"Long time no see!" red nose said, hopping in place.  
"It's your favorite Gummi Ship engineers Chip..." black nose began.  
"...and Dale!" red nose said.  
"Looks like you guys picked up a new friend." Chip said.  
"My name's Twilight. I'll be joining in on the adventure at Master Yen Sid's request." Twilight answered, briefly summoning her Keyblade before dispelling it.  
"Oh, well then let us wish you..." Chip began.  
"...Happy flying!" the chipmunks finished together.  
A screen on the dashboard lit up, showing two worlds and a shining path between them. One world was Twilight Town (haha, very funny universe) which they had just come from as Yen Sid's Tower was currently tied to that world, albeit loosely. The other looked to be a castle under construction with a town sheltered underneath it.  
"Only one?" Sora asked, half complaining.  
"That's no good." Donald agreed.  
"Hm, well Master Yen Sid said that the Keyblade would guide us right? If we take care of business on this world, we should be able to reach more." Twilight hypothesized.  
"I bet you're right! Besides, I think this is a world we know." Goofy said.  
They flew the Gummi Ship towards the world, and disembarked.  
They found themselves on a parapet that was similar to an alleyway behind what appeared to be a marketplace. The 'alley' was overlooking an enormous castle that was under something between construction and repair.  
"Gawrsh, it looks kind of different now, but-" Goofy cut off.  
"It's definitely Hollow Bastion. " Sora said. He brightened noticeably. "Hey, Leon and the others must've managed to put things back together if there's people here."  
"I hope they're doing okay." Donald added his two cents.  
Twilight turned to see a pair of Soldier Heartless on top of one of the shops. The Soldiers seemed to consider them for a moment, before vanishing in dark portals, evidently aware that attacking by themselves would be akin to suicide.  
"Uh oh, looks like we'll have to some fighting!" Goofy observed worriedly. The others had turned when they noticed she had, and seen the Heartless flee.  
"We can handle a couple Heartless, we might even clear them out of the town for a while." Twilight said. At that moment, a purple gem appeared, and a cartoon castle formed around it. The words 'Hollow Bastion' appeared, formed in front of the castle and with the gem as part of the 'I' in Bastion.  
Sora and the others seemed to have also seen it. "Does that always happen?" she asked.  
"Ahuh. Only world-travelers can see it though." Donald answered.  
Deciding to ignore it, they visited the shops for some better shields and staves for Donald and Goofy. They also stocked up on Potions and a couple Ethers.  
They had a short encounter with Donald's business tycoon uncle, who was apparently trying to recreate a delicious ice cream from his youth. Then they descended a staircase to find a series of narrow streets and houses, as well as a white circular pattern that appeared able to damage the Heartless if the lone Shadow that dissolved after being hit was any indication.  
"Hey what's going on?" Donald asked as the circles appeared around them, but stayed outside their personal space.  
"That's the town's defense mechanism. We call them Claymore." a new voice called. They looked up the nearby stone wall and saw a girl with short black hair, a sleeveless dark grey jacket over a blue and silver sleeveless shirt, a pair of brown shorts, and a pair of tan boots which had black socks peeking out over them.  
"Yuffie!" Sora called in greeting.  
Yuffie smiled and waved her hand, but then her expression turned into shock as she called "Look out!"  
Sora summoned his Keyblade and fended off a Dusk. More appeared around them and everyone summoned their weapons and began to fight the Nobodies off. There were several morphing ones, as well as a new type that resembled a samurai. This one had a katanna and everything.  
Afterward, she looked them up in her Bestiary.

'Creeper. The weakest Nobody of all. This one can change it's form to assist fighting. They have no specific weaknesses besides low mobility. They possess a snake-like base form, a spear form, a flying form, a shield form, and a sword form.  
Samurai. These Nobodies have a sense of honor and prefer one-on-one combat, though that may be partially due to that being their area of expertise. As you may guess from the name, they use at least one katanna, often two. They are helpless before a superior swordsman. They are also rather slow to attack, but move quickly when they do. Their resilience is relatively poor.'

The Nobodies fell fairly easily, between the four of them, the Claymore, and Yuffie jumping into the fray halfway through. They stood no chance, despite outnumbering the combatants 3:1.  
"Hey, you guys!" Yuffie said once the last Nobody had fallen. "I see you're still in top form." Yuffie said.  
"Well, what'd you expect?" Sora responded. "This is Twilight by the way. She's Master Yen Sid's apprentice. Looks like you guys are doing okay." Sora said.  
"Well, what did you expect?" Yuffie asked. "Nice to meet you Twilight, any friend of Sora's is a friend of ours." she added.  
"Nice to meet you too." Twilight answered.  
"How are the others?" Donald asked.  
"Great!" Yuffie said.  
"Hey Yuffie, have you seen the King and Riku?" Sora asked.  
"Nope." Yuffie said before slowly walking off.  
Twilight sighed as Sora slumped. "Yeah, it's never that easy, is it?"  
"But I had a feeling I'd see you guys again." Yuffie said, turning back to them.  
Sora struck a pose and put a serious expression on his face. "We may never meet again, but we'll never forget each other." he said, forcing his voice to be deeper than normal. Twilight couldn't fight the smirk forming on her face.  
"Is that supposed to be Leon?" Yuffie asked, a grin stretched across her face. Donald and Goofy chuckled. "Everybody's working on stuff over at Merlin's house." Yuffie jerked her thumb down the path. "Come on!"  
They followed Yuffie, and a few corners and several Heartless later, they entered a house a little bigger than the others. "Meet the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee!" Yuffie said proudly.  
"We missed you!" a girl with brown hair in a ponytail, a pink ribbon, a pink and white dress, and brown boots said.  
"Well, ain't you in top shape!" a man with blond hair, goggles, and a workman's outfit said.  
"I knew it." A man with brown hair, a scar across his face, a black leather jacket, a white shirt, a necklace with a silver lion's head, a pair of black pants, a pair of black gloves, and a pair of black boots said.  
After a brief round of introductions, Sora asked. "Knew what?"  
"We knew something was up when everyone suddenly remembered you guys, all at the same time." Leon answered.  
"Remembered? Wait, you forgot about us?!" Sora asked.  
"Thanks." Donald said sarcastically.  
"It sounds like someone's been tampering with memories, nobody just forgets someone completely and then remembers for no apparent reason." Twilight said. That was definitely concerning. Maybe the Organization wasn't the only problem that cropped up while Sora and co. were out of commission.  
"Hm, that might be, but we've got no way of proving it." Leon said.  
"So where have you guys been all this time?" Yuffie asked.  
"We were sleeping." Goofy said simply.  
"Where? In cold storage?" Cid asked.  
"Based on what they told me, surprisingly close." Twilight said as the others rubbed their heads sheepishly or an analogue.  
"It doesn't matter, everyone's together again. This is great!" Aerith said happily.  
"So um, we're trying to find Riku and the King, have you guys seen them?" Sora asked, getting a round of shaking heads in response.  
"Sorry, but we'll do what we can to help." Aerith said.  
"Okay, thanks." Sora said.  
Cid got up and approached the quartet. "Don't go thanking us just yet." he said  
"Hollow Bastion's got a problem. A [b]big[/b] problem." Leon continued.  
"You mean like Nobodies? And Heartless?" Sora asked.  
"That's right!" Yuffie said.  
"Sounds like you could use our help." Sora said.  
"We've had a few encounters already, they're part of what we're on this journey for too." Twilight said.  
"Then let's cut to the chase." Leon approached them. "Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Twilight too. We were hoping you four could give us a hand with the restoration."  
Sora nodded with a grin. "Like we're gonna say no." he said.  
Leon smiled. "I forgot who I'm dealing with." he said.  
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Donald asked suspiciously.  
"Just think of it as a sort of Leon compliment." Aerith said.  
Leon opened the door. "Meet me at the bailey. There's something you need to see." he walked out as she got a Quest.

'Follow Leon to the Bailey. Reward: 100 Exp/Bits.'

A puff of blue smoke revealed an old man in classic blue wizard's robes. "Ah, I thought it was you, right on time, though I wasn't expecting you to have a fourth member." Merlin said, looking at Twilight in a thoroughly perplexed manner.  
"It's Merlin!" Donald announced.  
"Sora and the Gang agreed to help out." Yuffie told Merlin.  
"Wonderful! We'll count on you." Merlin said.  
"Right!" the Keyblade wielders and their companions said.  
"Did you give them the cards dear?" Merlin asked.  
"Oh, I almost forgot." Aerith said, before giving Sora, Donald, and Goofy three purple cards which proclaimed them honorary member of the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee. "They're presents for you. Leon though you might like to have them." she said. "I'll make one for Twilight right away." she added.  
"Membership cards!" Donald said.  
"Kinda cool!" Goofy said.  
"Hey thanks Leo-" Sora paused, realizing Leon wasn't there. "Oh, right! We were supposed to meet him at the bailey." Sora said.  
"Ah, Sora, can I talk with you four for a second? First I'd like to be introduced to this young lady of course." Merlin said.  
After they introduced each other, Merlin said. "So Master Yen Sid's finally taken on a new apprentice, and it seems he's helped you get a handle on the Darkness inside you, eh? I'm guessing he taught you the Fire and Thunder spells, but not Blizzard as cold is usually aligned with Darkness for a reason." She nodded.  
"Those should do for now, but what's your status on spells Sora?" Merlin asked.  
"Um, I can't remember any." Sora said sheepishly.  
"You must've forgot them while we were sleeping." Goofy said.  
"Very well, then. I'll teach you Blizzard. Be careful with it."  
After Sora got Blizzard down, they left for the Bailey.


End file.
